


Converge and Dissolve

by snack_size



Series: Aftermath [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Chuck Lives, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-27 16:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snack_size/pseuds/snack_size
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck recovers from the injuries he's sustained during Operation Pitfall, which largely occurs in the isolation ward of medical. To his surprise, he spends most of his days with Raleigh and Herc, developing and repairing his relationships.</p><p>Once out of isolation, he realizes that there is an awful lot more he's going to have to adjust to aside from his injuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is Chuck's POV for the events occurring before and immediately after [Disperse and Align.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/902780/chapters/1745835) It isn't meant to be a stand-alone, so please read the other first since I've tried not to re-tell scenes from Chuck's POV, but instead provide additional ones.

Chuck was in a body bag. This made sense, since he was dead.

But it didn’t make sense that he knew he was in a body bag - being dead, he would have thought he’d be floating above his body. Or seeing a white light, or however it was supposed to work.

 _Mum,_ he thought, his mother should be waiting for him. Telling him she missed him.

Being dead also shouldn’t hurt. Chuck considered the possibility he was in hell - it felt like every inch of his skin was being seared, like something was crushing his insides. He couldn’t breathe. He reached to tear at the bag, to get out.

“Relax, Ranger,” came an English voice - posh, nasal. _Definitely hell, then,_ Chuck thought. “We’re nearly there.”

Chuck blacked out when they began to move him. The pain in his body was impossibly compounded when he was shifted to get off of the stretcher.

* * *

Everything was bright - _which is good_ , he decided, _things are progressing, here is the goddamned white light_. A shape moved over him. “I’m Dr. Lauritsen, Chuck.”

Possibly not hell, then. He struggled to open his eyes. He was still in a bag, and it took a moment to recognize why. He groaned, tried to turn his head to see the damage - and he knew, acutely, why he had felt like he was burning.

“I’m going to give you some painkillers,” Dr. Lauritsen said. It only took a moment for the back of his mouth to feel warm and tinny. Dilaudid. _Thank fuck._

He tried to remember - he had nodded at Stacker, said what he could for his father. And then Stacker had grabbed him, hit his head, disconnected him from the drift. _Going to die anyway_ , he said. _Have to do this for Herc._

Fucker hadn’t planned it, because Chuck would have seen it in the drift. He just decided that if he had the shot, he should take it.

“Dad?” Something brushed his hand to confirm this, and Herc was looming over him. Chuck had sensed him before he saw him - ghost drift. He hated it before, but now he relaxed, feeling Herc near him again.

When he saw Herc’s face he realized he had been dead. His dad’s eyes were raw and red, and Chuck remembered when his mother had died - what Chuck had felt, what Herc had felt, and what the two of them had felt the first time they experienced it all over again and from another perspective.

“Chuck.”

Chuck tried to breathe, to inhale, but he just got dizzy and nauseous. Or maybe that was the radiation. He was cooking from the inside - he knew it, and he could still feel it. “Daddy.”

“Shh,” Herc said, “I’ve got you now. Not gonna let you go.”

“We need to do surgery,” Dr. Lauritsen said. “But we have to get the room scrubbed clean before...”

Chuck composed himself and swallowed. He felt another injection of Dilaudid through some magic line that traversed the bag. “OK,” he said. “Max?”

“Tendo has Max.”

“OK,” Chuck said, and he met his father’s eyes. “Dad-”

“It’s OK, Chuck.”

“I’m gonna pass out,” he said.

* * *

“Look,” said Herc, and Chuck swam through the haze of drugs, anesthetic, and pain to focus on his father - and now Herc was the one in a bag. “You probably won’t remember, but-”

“What?” Chuck asked.

“Becket came to check up on you. Told him how you knew who he was-”

“Christ,” Chuck said. The last time he had surgery he’d admitted to his father, two nurses, and their chief mechanic that he’d never fucked anyone. Herc had just grinned. Herc had known, of course, because you couldn’t hide anything in the drift. He had always been relieved when Herc hadn’t sat him down to talk about it, because he definitely did not need a _so, son, you’re gay or possibly, I think the word is, bi-curious?_ talk. Chuck could imagine few things more awkward.

It was more embarrassing, though, admitting to Raleigh Becket how he had...and, yes, he had proved himself, so Chuck wasn’t as pissed as he would have been a day or so ago. But still. The poster. And the action figure.

Not that it really mattered, because Chuck had a lot more immediate things to concern himself with. Like how it felt like he’d been ripped apart, roasted, and then reassembled piece by piece.

“Everything hurts.”

“Yeah, it will,” Herc said. “You were bleeding inside, they fixed it. Most of your ribs are cracked, some worse, some broken. Radiation burns. Poisoning.” I’m just going to slowly roast to death, then, Chuck thought. He would have preferred to go out with Striker. “Lauritsen says you’ll make it.”

“All the doctors say that,” Chuck said. He felt dizzy, and it was hard to keep track of what Herc was saying - headache, nausea, compromised central nervous system. Fuck, he thought. I am so fucked. Sure, he was going to make it. But as what?

“Not her. Took care of Stacker, Tam...”

“Dr. Death,” Chuck said. He fell into a memory, maybe his, more likely Herc’s - tall, blonde, and Danish visiting the Sydney Shatterdome to look over Herc’s old friend, one of the other Aussie pilots, Rick. He was shaking his head, and Rick, always this genial guy was looking at him - at Herc - like he wanted to kill him. _Why’d you make it through clean? You and fucking Scott-_

“I don’t think she likes getting called that,” Herc said.

“OK,” Chuck said. “I wanna sleep.”

“Then sleep,” Herc said. His voice was soft and soothing, and Chuck let it lap over him and take him back into unconsciousness.

* * *

“You still here?” Chuck asked - he knew the answer without having to open his eyes.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Herc asked.

“Celebrating how the world isn’t over?” Chuck asked.

“Did that a little bit,” Herc replied. “Went down to the party while you were still in surgery.” _Not celebrating_ , Chuck noted. No celebrating just yet, and then he realized why. “But you said-”

“I know,” Herc said. “Didn’t really think about the infection, though, that it...that’s the big one, now.”

“Infection?” No white blood cells, he knew, compromised immune system, but if everyone was walking around him in fucking condoms, how was it going to get in?

“You should talk to the doctor…” Herc said.

Chuck looked down, where he could feel Herc’s gaze even though the sterile suit. He remembered a little bit of it, drifting in and out of consciousness, but he had hoped it was just a hallucination.

“Dad-”

“Chuck, it’s...” Herc sighed, because what was there to say? What wasn’t bubbled and blistering was oozing and would soon be festering, pus would soon be pouring out of him. He was some horror movie nightmare, and speaking of - he remembered, now, someone had come in after his surgery, and covered him in some kind of cream. Chuck had nearly bitten his tongue off, not wanting to make a sound. She had run her gloved fingers through his hair. _Just the two of us, Ranger, we’re the only ones here_. He had screamed until he was hoarse, then. Didn’t take a lot, either, it felt like his insides were a husk.

Chuck clicked his dilaudid drip and looked at Herc. “You’re strong, Chuck,” Herc said.

“Yeah,” Chuck said. It felt different, though, it felt harder now. Chuck sighed. “You look like you’re wearing a condom.”

“Yeah,” Herc said. “Except it’s got a little window.” Chuck tried his best to grin at the comment, but he couldn’t quite make it come out. “There is a joke there.”

“Is there?” Chuck asked, and Herc made a slight sighing sound again. “Look, dad...I’m sorry I said, before, about-”

“Don’t want me to stay?”

“I want you to stay,” Chuck said, because he could always blame it on the painkillers later. “I just...”

“I’m OK,” Herc said.

“Yeah, but what about Max?” Chuck asked. Here we go, he thought. He could see Herc was relieved too, though, or at least he seemed to be judging by the way the plastic bag changed shape.

“He’s with Tendo,” Herc said. “Tendo likes him.”

Tendo did like Max - it was how Chuck first decided he found Tendo acceptable when they’d sent him down from Anchorage to Sydney. _Mr. Choi needs a break from The Icebox_ , his dad said, and it took Chuck about ten minutes to figure out that Tendo had been close to the Beckets and wasn’t handling the whole Knifehead thing very well. As though he, from LOCCENT, had some control over those two idiots getting cocky and taking their eye of a Cat-III like that. As if he could have done anything to save Yancy or keep Raleigh from running.

Max was good at telling when people needed some extra attention, so Chuck hadn’t been surprised to find him nudging at Tendo whenever Chuck was near him. The third time it happened, Tendo just reached down and scooped Max up. “And who are you, you gorgeous little dude?” he asked.

“Don’t lie to him,” Chuck said. “S’not gorgeous.”

“I guess it is important for your dog to have a realistic perspective on his shortcomings,” Tendo said, and stood. Chuck had given him a slight smile as Max’s tail thumped as Tendo held him.

“Chuck?” Herc asked, and Chuck shifted his focus back to his father. “I was talking, I don’t think you were...”

“Sorry,” Chuck said. Everything was foggy, like he was just able to articulate a thought but it was slightly obscured and in the distance.

“Nothing to apologize for,” Herc said. He reached his hand over. It seemed like it took forever for him to complete the movement but eventually his gloved hand settled over Chuck’s. He gave his dad a slight smile, even though the pressure on his skin hurt.

Chuck had known he was going to die - he had known, sort of, when he first stepped into a Jaeger at fifteen, and he had really confronted it when Pentecost told him about Operation Pitfall. He’d accepted it, too. It had actually been a relief to have a name and a possible date on the event, instead of wondering what random monster was going to take them out, take Striker out.

It had been a little different when he had prepared to get into the Conn-Pod for Pitfall, but Chuck thought, at the time, it was because Herc wasn’t with him. They were supposed to be together - to go together. Herc had made a choice, not to leave Chuck behind. Herc had lost too much already.

Now, he wasn’t so sure. He knew he felt almost relieved when Stacker had hit his head - but he had been angry, too, he wasn’t supposed to leave his co-pilot. Even if there was nothing his co-pilot wanted more than to die in a Jaeger instead of slowly getting eaten by cancer.

Chuck really understood that, now, because his skin was slowly burning and falling off. And aside from any of that, his broken ribs and the organs they’d taken out and everything else - there was no more kaiju, no more Jaegers. What the fuck was he supposed to do with himself now?

“We’ll figure it out,” Herc said.

“OK,” Chuck said, even though he knew Herc was just as concerned as he was.

* * *

Raleigh came, during the day, and sat there and watched movies with him. Chuck wasn’t sure what to think about it - Raleigh Becket was concerned about him being bored in his hospital room?

When Herc settled in, presumably after his dinner, Chuck didn’t say anything for awhile - but when he heard Herc cough, he said, “Who told Raleigh Becket to come for a visit?”

“It was his idea,” Herc said. “There’s a lot for me to do, and he thought-”

“Sucks to sit in the hospital bed alone, yeah, got the whole monologue,” Chuck said. His words felt thick and heavy today, but they at least felt more his own.

“If you don’t want-”

Chuck sighed. The problem was that Raleigh Becket was right - it did suck to sit in a hospital bed yourself, and even if he had a full range of movies available to him, there was still the temptation to sit and think. And Chuck had a lot to think about.

The problem with Raleigh Becket was that Chuck had once had a Gipsy Danger poster on the wall of his room in the Shatterdome, when he had just been Herc’s kid, and he had read articles about the Becket Brothers because they were young, too, and they were kicking Kaiju ass. He had saved some and sometimes looked up things about them on the Internet. He was going to be like them - except when he absolutely wasn’t.

“I don’t know what I want,” Chuck said. There were a few things he was pretty sure about - he wanted not to hurt, anymore, both the burns and his body. He wanted the lines and tubes out of his body that were feeding him and collecting his waste. He wanted to be back like he was. Sometimes, he wondered if he had wanted to die in Striker, in his fucking home, his second skin, to go into the ocean with the rest of him.

“Neither do I,” said Herc. “But we’ve got time.” He laughed at the end of this, but it was sort of choked.

Chuck sighed. He shifted in the bed and grimaced at the pain that radiated from his skin down to his bones, and from the different course of pain that moved from his bruised and aching bones to his spine and all around him. He was so fucking tired.

* * *

Chuck clicked the dilaudid as often as it allowed, and sometimes more. Sometimes he clicked and clicked and hoped that some would trickle through or the computer program would take pity on him. Dr. Lauritsen was sympathetic, at least. “I can give you a sedative,” she said.

“Whatever,” Chuck said. She was good. He liked her, mostly because she didn’t bullshit him and seemed to know that he didn’t need to get treated like some poor war hero, some wounded baby.

“Infection here,” she said, and pointed the spot to the nurse. “We will need to pull all of the skin away.” The first time she had done this Chuck watched even though he felt vomit rise in the back of his throat. She was efficient and almost ruthless in the way she cut away at his skin and probably and tugged off the parts that were rotting.

“Will it get better?”

“The bacteria in the culture is not a particularly virulent one,” Dr. Lauritsen said.

“Not, like, flesh eating?” Chuck asked, and she nodded.

“Still...we cannot let it get systemic-”

“Would you cut off my leg?” Chuck asked. She nodded, and Chuck inhaled, and then exhaled. Better to be without a leg than dead, but still...he felt himself tearing up, and Dr. Lauritsen looked away.

Then, feeling a little more coherent later, he was angry with himself. He was Chuck Fucking Hansen, he had the record number of kaiju kills, he had saved the goddamn world. He had withstood the kaiju. This should be nothing.

“You can’t think like that,” Herc said, muffled in his condom.

“Was I saying that out loud?” Chuck asked, and Herc seemed to nod. His eyes were concerned. “I just don’t want to hurt, I want...we won, and I...” He felt his throat tighten, and he didn’t want to cry in front of Herc. He’d dealt with enough - and Chuck supposed that, if he believed in God, one of the things he would have agreed to when he was floating out on that ocean and praying for someone to rescue him was that he would be better son to his dad.

“Oh, Chuck, I know,” Herc said. “Don’t know what to say, really, but...”

“It’s OK,” Chuck said. “Just good to know you...know.”

Raleigh had a different perspective, when he saw Chuck glance down at himself. “It’s OK to be worried,” he said. “It’s OK to hurt.”

“Thanks, Oprah,” Chuck said. He couldn’t really see Raleigh’s eyes in the suit that he was wearing.

“No one thinks any less of you,” Raleigh added.

“Don’t we have another episode to watch?” Chuck asked. He wasn’t going to admit it, but he really liked the show that Raleigh had picked out. Everyone, at first, tried to get Chuck into criminal procedurals - apparently watching two cops figure out who raped a woman was the perfect thing to have in the background for a lot of people. Raleigh seemed to get that there was something to the formulaic nature of them that was ideal because Chuck didn’t have to remember - try to remember - a story arc, but that he wanted something…fun. So they watched a show about scientists who worked for a Smithsonian stand-in and solved murders.

“We do,” Raleigh said. “You get to find out-”

“Shush,” Chuck said, and Raleigh shushed.

* * *

Raleigh Becket kept coming, and Chuck just decided to accept it like he had accepted Dr. Lauritsen’s exams, his skin treatments, the nurse who came in and emptied various bags and hooked up bags containing other stuff - or, at least, Chuck hoped it was other stuff.

Chuck made a joke to Herc that Raleigh was just as annoying as his daily medical treatments - and Herc managed to give him a look even though the clear eyehole of his prophylactic suit didn’t line up with his eyes. More ghost drifting, maybe, and Chuck felt a weird pang. It was stupid to mourn for a Jaeger, though. “If you don’t want…”

“No, it’s just…” Chuck waved his good hand around. Herc nodded. “Fuck!”

Herc nodded. “I know,” he said. “I’ve been there.” He pointed at the bed. Chuck sighed, remembered the two weeks Herc had been in the ICU after his asshole uncle had got Lucky Seven torn to shreds. Chuck didn’t want to think about it. “You’re getting there.”

“I’m confused - am I getting the there where you’ve been or the there where I’m recovering?” Chuck asked. Herc chucked at this, at least, but didn’t elaborate. This distressed Chuck.

“Your CNS function is back to acceptable levels,” Dr. Lauritsen assured him, so it seemed that he hadn’t cooked his brains. There was only one remaining conclusion.

“I think I’m high,” he told Raleigh, when he came in after breakfast the next day. Chuck glanced over at his dilaudid clicker and smiled. “But I don’t know what that feels like.”

“They’ve never given you oxies, whatever, when you hurt yourself?” Raleigh asked.

“Yeah,” Chuck said. “Mostly just made me sleepy, though. And like I wanted to sleep with Max.” Raleigh smiled at him, and Chuck felt really stupid - _hey, Raleigh, did you know I like snuggling my dog? I have quite a busy and awesome life, when I’m not piloting a Jaeger._

“Being cuddly - that’s sort of like being high,” Raleigh said.

“Have you been high?” Chuck asked.

“On painkillers - yeah, absolutely,” Raleigh said. Chuck arched an eyebrow. “And...pot, yeah, I mean, what do think there was to do, suburbs of fucking Anchorage...Yancy used to get it from the guy he worked with, on the boat-”

“Yancy actually worked on a fishing boat?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah,” Raleigh replied.

“Is that...those are actual fisherman’s sweaters?” Chuck asked.

“Well...some are the PPDC ones,” Raleigh said. His voice was a little tight, and Chuck felt bad. Raleigh had never really talked to him about Yancy, before, and any and all of Chuck’s knowledge came from magazine articles and a few things Herc had grunted out about Yancy when Chuck had asked. “It gets cold-”

“Yeah, I bet,” Chuck said.

“Not all of us can just wander around in t-shirts,” Raleigh added. Chuck glanced down at his arms, which looked like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption, another appropriate natural disaster. _Tit for tat_ , Chuck thought. Except Raleigh actually apologized, then clicked on the next episode of the comedy they were watching.

They moved through television shows and movies at a steady clip. There were a few movies that he had actually already seen - but it had been some time. Chuck had never really had time. In the evenings at the Academy, he’d been so tired he just wanted to go to sleep after he studied. He had more free time as a pilot, but he always thought he should spend it doing something constructive, working on the online classes he was taking, keeping his and Max’s fitness up. Dog had a tendency to get chubby mostly because he was so good at getting table scraps. At one point, Herc had suggested getting him a little treadmill, but that seemed really silly to Chuck. He already got enough guff for Max’s bathroom piddle pad - as though Chuck had the time to take the dog outside to the platform each time he needed to take a piss or shit.

Raleigh did not think that these were good enough justifications. “You just missed all this stuff,” Raleigh said, poking through the long Netflix list he had assembled.

“You know, you had a bit more time in a world not getting trashed by kaiju, to watch television…” Chuck pointed out. After the Yancy conversation, he tried to be more tactful but, it occurred to him, mid-sentence, he didn’t have a lot of good examples to work from. “I was in the Academy,” Chuck replied. “Wasn’t time.”

Raleigh turned his head and considered this. “You didn’t watch stuff, in the evenings, with everyone in the...?”

“Mate, when you were there, would you have been friends with some thirteen year-old who beat you out on all the sims?” Chuck asked.

“No,” Raleigh replied. “But what else was there to do...then?” He seemed genuinely curious.

“Worked out,” Chuck said. “Homework. Brass insisted I get my high school degree sewn up, didn’t want some newscaster pointing out that a billion dollar machine was powered by someone who hadn’t graduated high school.”

“Huh,” Raleigh said. _Fuck,_ Chuck thought, because sometimes he was so slow it was almost cute - except he was so slow. Which was probably the reason he got his ass handed to him by a kaiju. Thankfully, though, Chuck knew enough to keep that one in.

He didn’t really like reflecting on his own maturity. He didn’t like having time to think.

“Yeah, you know, world needed saving,” Chuck said, to keep talking about something acceptable. He paused for a moment. “Dad needed a co-pilot, after Scott…” He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Raleigh was still looking at him with that soft gaze of his - Chuck could keep talking, and it would be OK, it said. Or they could not talk, and Raleigh would still understand. “We had this great tech, Abbie - nice looking, but she was always greased up and working, you know, and maybe she was embarrassed by it? Thought people might not take her seriously…”

Raleigh nodded. Chuck remembered sitting by his father, before their first drift. _Gonna be a lot of things that come through, that might hurt,_ Herc said. _That’s why we do it here, just you and me_ \- no Jaeger. Chuck nodded and sighed - they were both anticipating the moment that had sliced through both of them, but they both were still so raw and hurt from it they had just moved past it that time, slid over it like Chuck imagined sledding felt like.

Instead, he’d found something Herc had never told him about. Chuck, like everyone else, knew Scott had done something really bad. And he’d been around the Shatterdome long enough to know what really bad for Scott likely qualified as. But still, he hadn’t been prepared for-

“She used to watch me, sometimes - not creepy, Raleigh, fuck off, like...babysit,” Chuck said. He wasn't sure how he could tell Raleigh had grinned, but he could. “Never called it that, ‘cause I would have been a right prick about having a babysitter at eleven, but…”

Raleigh let the statement hang in the air until he realized Chuck wasn’t going to say anything else. He frowned, slightly, then said, “and you didn’t watch movies and shit with her?”

“Not this kind of stuff,” Chuck said, relieved - and how had Raleigh known just the right thing to say? “She liked soaps - Neighbors, East Enders, Coronation Street…”

Raleigh grinned at this. “You watched soaps.”

“Like I was gonna insist we watch Lost,” he replied. “Didn’t even know what that was.”

Raleigh shrugged and pressed play - they’d just finished Lost and had moved onto another comedy that Raleigh insisted he would like, even though it was set in New York City and was heavy with pop culture references. “You’ll empathize with Jack Donaghy, I think,” Raleigh said. Chuck rolled his eyes.

* * *

“Look,” said Herc, the night that Chuck told Raleigh not to come back. “Look, Chuck, I know that you don’t like-”

Chuck looked at his dad and sighed, cutting Herc short. “Fuck,” Chuck said, instead, which was a really poor response. “I don’t need him feeling sorry for me.”

“I don’t think that’s what it is,” Herc said. “Fuck, kid, didn’t I ever teach you how to make friends?”

 _Friends_ , Chuck thought, and it swam around in his head for awhile thanks to the painkillers - he was getting lower dosages, Lauritsen said, but he was still high, and that was probably a good thing, because there was less pain for them to absorb. Or Chuck was pretty sure that was how pain killers worked.

“OK,” Chuck said. “Can you tell him he can come back?” Herc stared at him. Chuck sighed. “I was having a bad day.”

“Chuck?” Herc asked, and _fuck me_ , Chuck thought, _now we’re going to have to have conversations and all of the things we should have done before because this is a grand second chance._

“I look like a mutant,” he said, because it was the easiest thing to talk about because it was right in front of both of their faces.

His skin was peeling and shucking off like a bad sunburn. There were still some deep blisters that were getting treated - scrubbed, stripped, skin cut away and removed - because Lauritsen wanted to be aggressive about the places where infection might settle. Now, though, they were also where Chuck was always going to carry craters.

“It will get better,” Herc said.

“Fuck off, you know what-”

“Well, you’re not going to look bright red all the time,” Herc said. He shrugged his shoulders.

“OK,” Chuck said. “Fine, but-”

“You were never...vain,” Herc said.

Chuck didn’t even know how to approach this. It was true - he had never thought how he looked was important, beyond how it reflected his level of fitness. But he also knew he was objectively attractive, he overheard some of the gossip, at least, and there were a lot of places on the Internet that said so. “I’m damaged goods.”

“Anyone who thinks that, you punch in the face,” Herc said.

“And you wonder why I ended up in a fight with Raleigh?” Chuck asked.

This got a slight smile out of a Herc, which was sort of a surprise. “Well.” Chuck could sense that Herc was thinking, possibly chewing his bottom lip like he did. “He wasn’t being a git.”

Chuck inhaled, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Guess he wasn’t.”

* * *

“You live in that world,” Chuck said, after they watched the last of the Harry Potter movies, “what House would you get sorted into?”

“Huh,” said Raleigh. “I don’t know. That’s an interesting question.” Such a Raleigh response, Chuck thought.

“I think you’re pretty clearly a Hufflepuff,” Chuck said, just to get things going.

Raleigh raised his eyebrows and also pressed his lips together. “And I guess you’d be a Gryffindor.”

“Mate, I stepped into a Jaeger at fifteen.”

“And I’m a Hufflepuff because-”

“You’re nice,” Chuck said, instantly, and then he felt his face grow hot and redden. Good thing no one would notice, with the burns and everything - though his face had been pretty much spared, except for the one part of his jaw, his neck, and back by his ear.

“Nice,” Raleigh said.

“Yeah,” said Chuck. “And you work hard, and you’re patient and loyal and...like Cedric Diggory, except, uh. Not dead-” And he knew he needed to dodge discussing that one further, “- and besides, Gryffindors tend to be awful stupid cunts - look at all the shit those three got into.”

“OK,” Raleigh said. “I suppose I’ll accept that.” He smiled at Chuck, and Chuck got this strange feeling - it was a stupid thing to ask, really.

* * *

“Your skin is not healing like I would like in places,” said Dr. Lauritsen, to Herc and Chuck. “I think we are going to need to do some skin grafts.”

“Does this mean things are bad?” Chuck asked. It was strange having two people talk to him who were both in condom suits. He had also been under the impression that he had, literally, been healing. He looked better, less porous and wet. It still hurt like hell, though.

“No…” Dr. Lauritsen said. “There are just some places that are still open, when the rest is healed well. I would like to get you out of isolation. So if we do grafts, the rest will heal.”

“So it is not as good as it could be, but also expected,” Chuck said.

“Yes,” she said. “I have been growing donor skin with the anticipation of this. We can do the grafts tomorrow?”

“If you think that’s best,” Chuck said, though he sighed. He didn’t want any more procedures and he didn’t want to have anything else done to him. He looked over at Herc, who nodded.

Chuck suddenly got the feeling that there would never really be an end. He had been focused on his skin because it was the easiest, the most present, but there were plenty of other things that had happened. His ribs were cracked and broken, and Chuck knew how Herc’s broken bones felt even after they healed. He didn’t have a spleen, his liver and kidney had to be stuck back together.

He was going to be a patient, an experiment. He felt nauseous.

Dr. Lauritsen, thankfully, recognized this and turned and left the room. He was lucky, he thought. Chuck had his fair share of inept doctors.

“Chuck,” Herc said, and sat down close to him. “Oh, Chuck.” He tugged at the headpiece of the suit so that Chuck could actually see his eyes.

“I know,” Chuck said. “I’m alive, I’m…”

“No,” Herc said. “It’s OK, it’s…it’s going to be hard.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, and then he shook his head. “We’ll get through it, though.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, and he knew this - and he was glad for it, even if he knew he was never going to get Herc off of his ass, either.


	2. Chapter 2

Chuck didn’t think his restrictions could get more restrictive. Not only was he not allowed to move any of the parts of his body that had received the transplants - a hell of alot of them - but he was also in a high oxygen enclosure. “Did I miss the part about the high oxygen tube?” he asked Lauritsen, when he was coherent enough. “What was the disease, where they-”

“Polio,” she said. “This is more of a tent.” That probably explained why she was still in one of the plastic bag suits. “I think just for two days while the skin heals.”

“Can I see?” Chuck asked. Dr. Lauritsen cocked her head.

“I will bring a mirror, next time,” she said. “Any visitors will have to be through the viewer because of the oxygen.” Chuck huffed.

It was exactly what he didn’t want, certainly what he didn’t need. Turned out Raleigh had really been on to something, about sitting by yourself in a hospital room after something had happened. Nearly dying - he hadn’t really thought about it, about how scared he was. How it more frightening to have to deal with an indeterminate future. Things had been so easy before, everything scheduled, except when a kaiju attacked and even then...he knew there was the potential that any day could be the day he, Herc, and Striker got deployed.

“You were going to try and fob me off, weren’t you?” Chuck asked, when Lauritsen returned with the mirror two hours later.

“I debated it,” she said. She opened the portal in the tent and passed him a small hand mirror the kind that girls used to have with the first makeup they got in school. “I am not good at these things.”

“That’s what we’ve got shrinks for,” Chuck said. “They’ve been awesome.” It took him a few tries with his unaffected hand, but he eventually was able to get a view of his chest, where some of the worst damage was. It looked like someone had laid graph paper over him, or some kind of porous cloth. Underneath was all red, bright, glistening, and it was sort of nightmare fuel.

“This will look better when it grows together.”

“The fuck..?” Chuck asked, when he checked the graft on his neck. There were four twenty pence sized circles of incredibly pale, freckled skin where his hair should be.

“Localized hair loss from the radiation poisoning,” said Lauritsen. “The helmet protected your head from much of it.”

“Oh, well, there’s that,” Chuck said, and handed the mirror back to her. “Fuck.” He felt his eyes well and he was incapable of brushing the tears away efficiently, which really sucked.

“Yes,” Lauritsen said, and she is the first person who has goddamn agreed with him and - well, of people to cry in front of, he figured that his surgeon probably was the best choice of the people he had. “But I’d say, on a scale, you would rank as...pretty well fucked. So, worse than only slightly, but not approaching truly.”

Chuck considered this and swallowed, and used his good hand to wipe at his tears. “Thanks,” he said, because he knew how difficult it was to get people to be honest with him.

“I want to start you on some liquid nutrition drinks, see how your stomach does,” she said. Chuck nodded.

* * *

“How is Max?” he asked Mako, because he could feel her lingering by his observation window - come and see the remains of Chuck Hansen, former-Jaeger pilot! Hero!

“Tendo will not admit it, but he likes him,” Mako said. “Though he often sleeps with your father.”

That is because Max was a good dog, Chuck thought, and knew when his people needed him. Not that Herc would ever admit to wanting to sleep with the damn dog - usually, the only night that he allowed it was the anniversary of Scissure, and that only started because Chuck had crawled into bed with him the first few times.

“Out of everyone, Mori, I wouldn’t have bet on you the person to say something like that when I can’t meet your eyes,” Chuck said, putting the pieces together.

“He likes to lick feet,” Mako said, and Chuck could see the shy smile on her face. He couldn’t really imagine her and Tendo, because - well, he knew Tendo had a crush on her. Everyone knew, Tendo wasn’t good at subtle. Mako, on the other hand. It probably was working out well for them, though.

“Yeah,” Chuck said, though he didn’t know. And how fucking sad was that, he hadn’t even had the opportunity to get cock-blocked by his own dog? Tendo and Mako got there first? He sighed.

“I should go,” Mako said. Chuck just nodded.

* * *

“I thought you said you were moving me out of containment,” Chuck said, when Dr. Lauritsen came in and he saw her in person for the first time. He had almost panicked, for a moment, when someone entered who wasn’t covered in white plastic wrap - it had been drilled in him, enough, and he wasn’t about to lose a fucking leg because someone forgot to put their protective barrier on.

“Do I meet expectations?” she asked.

“Just about,” Chuck said, because she was tall, blonde, very athletic and Danish looking. He wished he knew some appropriate sport that Danes tended to play. Soccer, probably.

“You should work on listening comprehension,” she said, then grinned at him. “I am here to move you.”

“Aren’t there…nurses?” Chuck asked.

“We are waiting for some new ones,” she replied. “The others, they have been-”

“Yeah,” Chuck said. Raleigh had told him that a lot of people were headed home, even as plans were being made for the PPDC to soldier on, moderating who got to use the Jaeger technology and working with researchers on drifting technology. “Well, all right.” He almost asked if she had someone she needed to go home to - but then remembered, probably Herc’s memories, because he always knew that shit, that she had a partner who had passed away.

“You need a bigger room, anyway,” she said. “Lots of people wish to see you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Chuck said. Lauritsen pressed her lips together and considered him for a moment.

“It seems to me,” she said, “that you are good with detecting bullshit.” Chuck wished he could turn his head to follow as she moved behind his bed and clipped some of his I.V. bags onto the sides for his trip down the hall. “So you should be able to tell...friendship from voyeurism.”

“Speaking from experience?” Chuck asked, because what he couldn’t tell was whether that was an opening for her to tell him about her own strength and perseverance or...something else, which he was leaning towards, since the first wasn’t Lauritsen’s style. Hell, she’d turned up to work for PPDC when she lived about as far from the Pacific Ocean as you could get.

“Yes,” she said. “You will get more of it - so much less to go around, now, you know.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, and a frightening thought occurred to him, because Chuck hated reporters. “Has it been announced...that I’m out of isolation?”

“Even if it were, any reporter would have to get through your father,” she said, and clicked something with her shoe that detached his bed from the wall. Chuck glanced around the room - his home for the past almost three weeks, and wow, does time fly when you’re having fun and all your skin is rotting off.

“That’s good,” he said. He squeezed his eyes shut, even the gentle movement of the bed was enough to make him feel nauseous.

“Just across the hall,” Lauritsen said, and Chuck nodded. He hadn’t even thought of getting out of bed - he hadn’t been able to move for three weeks, and even without any other damage, that meant his muscles were atrophied and shot. “One thing at a time,” she said, when she stopped and attached the bed to the wall. Chuck squinted, and it took a moment to realize he had a proper window - high, small, but still, sunlight was coming through.

“OK,” he said. He had never taken things one thing at a time, though. Just not a real competency he had.

* * *

He managed to contain his freak-out until after Raleigh left, and that was saying something, since they made it through one and a half Lord of the Rings movies. He shouldn’t have asked to look at the pictures of people with radiation skin burns, or just burns generally. He shouldn’t have asked especially after being able to see Raleigh - because, fuck, Raleigh was more attractive than he remembered. Probably because he’d actually been eating decently and taking care of himself over the past month. Mako probably made him take showers.

And Chuck - Chuck was a fucking mess. Pretty well fucked, definitely. Bald spots and all.

Unfortunately, this freak-out occurred just as Herc was stepping in for the night. His dad looked a lot better, too, at least.

“Chuck,” Herc said, as Chuck’s breathing rate increased and a couple of the monitors he was attached to started to make high pitched warning sounds. Herc took his hand - he still had gloves on. Chuck wanted to tug his hand away. His whole shoulder felt tight, though, and a hard pain was radiating from his chest to his upper arm.

Chuck hadn’t had one of these in awhile. He probably should have had one a lot sooner - but it turned out the thing he needed to well and truly inspire a proper panic attack wasn’t all of the issues he was going to face but the fact that Raleigh Becket was definitely too hot to want to be with someone like him.

It hit him, hard. So it had happened again - and of course it had, the way he had idolized Becket when he was a kid and…the way Raleigh talked to him, now, like they were…how he came, every day, like he cared…

Lauritsen came in and didn’t even ask questions, just brought a syringe and injected it into one of his lines. She’d given him benzoes several times before. Wouldn’t do for him to thrash in his sleep while his skin tried to heal. “Not sure what to say,” Herc said to him, after he was at least able to breathe again.

“You’ve said it,” Chuck said. “We’ve talked about it - I’m…” he shook his head. He had pretty much used all the words, he was sure. He was a mutant, a monster, grotesque, a nightmare. Suitable only for playing the villain or the brave, wounded war veteran. “I don’t know what.”

“Yeah, well,” Herc said. “Still Chuck Hansen.”

Chuck wasn’t even sure, anymore. It depended on how you defined Chuck Hansen. “I guess.”

“Maybe tell me what you’re...what got you worked up?” Herc asked. The way he said it made Chuck wish he could pull a sheet over himself. Apparently lack of ability to make eye contact could do wonders for how earnest Herc could tolerate his father/son communications.

Chuck didn’t want to say anything - but then, what was the worst that could happen? Herc had been through the wringer, too, there was no point still being stubborn. “I just...before, I knew, right, the probability. Not, like, Gottlieb level, or anything, but…and so I didn’t worry about what to do after but, now...I mean…”

“Well…” Herc said. “Don’t need to worry about a job. ”Chuck inclined his head slightly before he remembered the skin graft on his neck. “Money poured in, after...got it all set up with the bankers, pensions, that sort of thing, you won’t ever need to worry about money.”

Yeah, well, least they could fucking do, Chuck thought. And why not? Not like they had a wall to waste money on, anymore. He had to close his eyes for a moment, because that was a whole other problem. “So, you know, you don’t need-”

“That’s not all there is!” Chuck said, and even though he couldn’t see his father’s face he could see how he held his shoulders and goddamnit, he had sort of set Chuck up.

“You know, it’s not all about looks-”

“Right, someone’s gonna want to be with me for my positive and glowing personality,” Chuck said. “It’s why I’ve got so many friends-”

“You’ve got a lot of people who care about you,” Herc said, voice soft. “Would of come by, but told them you didn’t want…” It had been a protection mechanism - Chuck could imagine the people who would have come by without being disappointed by the actual numbers. Or he could fester, pissed about his lack of visitors. Besides Raleigh - and he felt it again, then, that familiar sense that it wasn’t just him in his head. This was the longest in some time they’d gone without drifting, he realized.

Herc sighed and Chuck felt the connection snap. He was relieved, but then Herc said, “I wouldn’t mind, you know...if…”

“Oh, God, no, dad,” Chuck said.

“Well, I’d like for you to meet someone, now,” Herc said, and waved his hand, slightly, and it was a little- “And it wouldn’t be any fuss, you know, if that someone happened to be another, uh...bloke.” Herc blushed slightly at this.

Chuck wished he had the ability to, in the least, pull the hospital sheet over his head. More ideally he would have grabbed a pillow and shoved it over his face and tried to smother himself.

The bastard had waited until now for this little chat, Chuck knew it.

“S’nothing to be embarrassed about,” Herc said. “You love who you love.”

“Did you get that from a book or something, talking to your gay son?” Chuck asked. His voice was a little high and embarrassing.

“See now,” Herc said, with a placid smile, “wasn’t that hard, was it?”

Chuck closed his eyes. “Doesn’t matter. Like anyone is gonna want…”

“Well,” Herc said. “We’ll see.”

* * *

Chuck figured he’d probably done penance enough for being such an asshole - and, really, universe, or whoever dealt out that kind of thing, he’d only been an asshole because he had to fight giant interdimensional monsters. For the sake of mankind. Or to prove he was...worth it. Whatever. The point was he’d been burned and then probably had all of his skin cut, sloughed, or otherwise removed over the past three weeks. He’d admitted to his father and Raleigh fucking Becket he was gay. And now he was reassuring everyone else who came to visit him about...whatever they needed from him, and they definitely needed something from him, and it was exhausting.

Even with the Tim Tams, Hob Nobs, and Jelly Babies.

“Signe says you’re healing well,” Herc said, when he came in that evening - Chuck tried to figure out what was different about him before he realized his was wearing jeans. Non-PPDC issue jeans, and, hell, why not? Seemed like everyone else in the Shatterdome was getting laid. Herc certainly deserved it. “And eating.”

“A little,” Chuck said. He might have gone overboard on the Tim Tams, before, if only to prove to Raleigh that the Australian cookies were superior to the chocolate covered Hob Nobs. Even if he did have a massive weakness for chocolate covered Hob Nobs.

“Good,” Herc said, and his eyes slid up and down Chuck’s body.

Another thing Chuck hadn’t considered. “I’ve lost weight,” he said. It was an obvious consequence.

“Yeah,” Herc replied. “Well, of course. Just been getting fluids.”

Chuck sighed - it didn’t matter, really. Not like he needed to get back into a Jaeger. Not like he needed to do anything, really.

“You’ll get a physical therapist,” Herc said. “Get you moving again, once the skin is sealed.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, and he sighed. “Wait, did you call Lauritsen Signe?”

“Hasn’t she told you to?” Herc asked.

“Yeah, but...she’s my doctor,” Chuck said. He looked at Herc’s well-fitted jeans and narrowed his eyes. “Are you..?”

“Chuck,” said Herc, “don’t think I’m her type. It’s just - we talk a lot.”

Chuck remembered all of the medical forms he had signed - when he joined the PPDC, again when he turned eighteen - that allowed Herc to discuss every aspect of his medical care with PPDC doctors. Fuck, they probably got coffee together and discussed how he only had one nipple now. “Right,” he said.

He wanted to ask if there was someone - hell, he knew most of the Shatterdome would fuck his dad, which was always awkward. Then he stopped himself. Herc was private, despite the fact he was willing to open himself up to just about anyone in the drift.

“You have to stay, don’t you?” Chuck asked, because he had talked about it with Raleigh. “Being Marshall.”

“For the forseeable future,” Herc said. “But you don’t have to-”

“Where am I gonna go?” Chuck asked. He gave Herc a slight smile, though, to let him know what he meant. Herc nodded.

* * *

When Raleigh kissed him, Chuck got this empty, strange sensation in his stomach that made him understand that maybe this was what all the fuss was about. Butterflies, he thought, and he used to think it was some stupid chick-lit thing, but...his previous encounters had been with Shatterdome brats like himself. Compared to how Raleigh kissed they’d been really perfunctory. And blowjobs, Chuck realized, should not feel perfunctory.

Raleigh’s mouth was smooth, soft, and very eager. Chuck leaned into the kiss, as best he could, even though his movements were restricted. It was all going well until Lauritsen rushed in on them to hook up more antibiotics.

“Do you mind if we just go over this again?” Chuck asked, after they watched a movie.

“Sure,” Raleigh said, and he smiled softly at him, though it was this sort of silly, smug smile that kind of made Chuck want to hit him.

“Because…” he waved his hand over his body, “and it’s not like I’ve got a sparkling personality, I know-”

“You grew on me,” Raleigh said. He pressed his lips together.

“You’re smiling,” Chuck said.

“I like you,” Raleigh said, in that infinitely patient voice he had. Chuck scrunched his face. It pulled at his new neck skin.

“I look like a mutant.”

“Maybe I have a mutant kink,” Raleigh said, and grabbed his hand.

“Fine,” Chuck said.

“That’s great,” Raleigh said. “Fine.”

“Well, you’re just…” Chuck waved his hand. Raleigh cocked his head slightly. He was going to make him say it. “You’re very, uh, attractive...and, uh-”

“I’m a washed up runner with trust and intimacy issues,” Raleigh said. “I’ve got really poor impulse control and, uh, sometimes think I hear the voice of my dead brother talking to me in my head.”

Chuck flinched - he had wondered about that. “Nice face, though,” Chuck said, because, fuck, where do you go from there?

Raleigh smiled - even given what he had just revealed, even with the connection to the less pleasant conversation where he had goaded Raleigh into revealing he was gay. Raleigh bit at his lower lip, slightly, then did a really unfair thing where he stuck his tongue out slightly, licked his lower lip, and then pulled it back. “I can retract that,” Chuck said.

“You’re not going to,” Raleigh said. “I think you’ve got more visitors - looks like Tendo is here. With potato chips?”

“Oh, prawn chips,” Chuck said. “Those are good.”

“No,” Raleigh said.

* * *

“Oi, now, that’s cute,” Herc said that evening, picking up the small Max, “Probably shouldn’t have taken it out of the box...it’s a collectible.”

“I am sure someone will send us some, if they haven’t already,” Chuck said. They had a whole storage unit somewhere outside of Sydney filled with Striker Eureka paraphenalia. And if they hadn’t got a pension - that probably would have set them up for a good portion of the future, at least.

“Even got the collar right,” Herc said, and smiled slightly.

“Newt’s lady friend got it for me,” Chuck said.

“Back from her yurt,” Herc said. Chuck narrowed his eyes - since when was his dad friends with Newt Geiszler enough to know that his new Russian girlfriend lived in a yurt? And did people even live in yurts, for real? “She apparently does live in a yurt. Traditional Siberian peoples.”

Chuck snorted at the thought of Newt getting packed off to go and meet the family - riding a horse to get to the yurt, having to eat a whole sheep’s head as the honored guest. Chuck had a really vivid memory from being home and sick, when he was twelve and watching some documentary of an English guy who was completely useless as he traveled through Siberia and Mongolia and probably only lived because he had a camera crew with him.

“And she wound up as a Jaeger engineer?”

“Mum packed her off to school, apparently,” Herc said, and shrugged his shoulders. “With Cherno since the beginning.”

“They all were,” Chuck said. “Are, I guess.”

“They’re, uh, pulling him out of the harbor,” Herc said. “Going to put him back together as a memorial for them.” Chuck nodded - he couldn’t think of a more fitting one. Goddamnit, he thought, and he felt nauseous, suddenly, and it was probably all the fucking Tim Tams, Hob Nobs, and prawn cocktail chips. Of course it wasn’t just that - Aleksis and Sasha were down there too, he realized, and if only he and Herc hadn’t insisted on obeying Stacker. Of course, none of them might be here, now, but-

“Chuck?” Herc asked, and he glanced up at the bag of antibiotics. Chuck waved his hand, and Herc pulled one of the basins from the bedside table - one of those useless, tiny kidney shaped ones that never contained the amount of vomit you actually threw up.

Herc had to hold it, too, since Chuck couldn’t move his arm and Chuck felt bad when he threw everything up all over himself and Herc’s arm. “I am so, so, sorry,” Chuck said.

“Chuck, shh,” Herc said, as he pulled away and hit the nurse button near Chuck’s bed. “You’ve thrown up on me an awful lot of times, really, one more-”

“Oh, God,” Chuck said, because he really tried not to think about what a weird nervous little kid he’d been and how it had turned him from Charlie to Chuck - you want to call me Chuck? Fine! I’m Chuck, then! - and, along with that, report cards that went from saying he was shy and withdrawn to having problems with aggression and getting along with other children. “Dad.”

“Oh, yeah, saw that coming,” Lauritsen said, as she popped her head in and then out. She returned with a bucket and new sheets for the bed.

Chuck didn’t like to think about how he was naked, and had been naked for three weeks, but here he was, exposed and open to the air. He tried to glance down at his cock - suddenly paranoid, because it figured that they wouldn’t tell him about that, morale and everything - but he couldn’t quite see it.

“Still there,” Herc said, helping Lauritsen clean him up. He cracked Chuck’s bed angle so he could see. Still there, and miraculously not damaged - though apparently his scrotum had been quite close. One of his nastier burns was on the inside of his left thigh.

“Yes,” Lauritsen said. “Strongest radiation shielding there.” She and Herc were quick and efficient, and she soon had a clean sheet over Chuck and then was pushing Herc over towards the bathroom. “Take a shower,” she said, and closed the door on him. “You have had an exciting day.”

“I was talking about - thinking about…everyone died,” Chuck said. He felt stupid for saying it. He waved his hand over himself. “But that dumb cunt decided to give me a shot, and…”

“Well,” said Lauritsen, “fill in your own inspirational quote here.”

Chuck smiled at her and glanced over at the shelf of treats. “I ate too many Tim Tams to prove Raleigh wrong.”

“You know, I don’t think it is that much an injury to your national pride if you admit chocolate covered Hob Nobs are a better cookie,” she said.

“Would you admit that some kind of pickled Swedish fish was better than Danish pickled fish?” Chuck asked.

“Yes,” said Lauritsen. Signe, Chuck supposed. “But I fucking hate pickled fish.”

* * *

 

“I’m Dr. Hill,” said the man who Dr. Lauritsen had escorted into the room the next morning. “I’m going to be doing your physical therapy.”

“He’s decent,” Lauritsen said. Dr. Hill looked at her - Chuck got the sense he was probably an excellent physical therapist but probably had accidentally grabbed Lauritsen’s ass once.

“Right now we need to work on restoring range of motion,” Dr. Hill said, while Herc folded his arms and grunted. “They’ve done a good job, before the grafts, moving you around so you don’t have anything that’s healed improperly, but still, not the same as getting up and moving around.” Herc made a coughing sound. “Of course, it will help you were in peak physical condition.”

“Good to know,” Chuck said.

“How is solid food going?” Dr. Hill asked, glancing at Chuck’s rapidly growing stash of food items that he currently couldn’t eat after the chocolate vomit incident. Rice, crackers, noodles, and chicken noodle soup for him for now.

“Getting there,” Dr. Lauritsen said. “Ribs aren’t completely healed, of course, but the limbs are largely unaffected.” Dr. Hill nodded, then turned when Raleigh entered the room.

“Hey,” he said, and sat down in a chair with his tablet. “Physical therapy?”

“Dr. Hill, this is Raleigh Becket,” Chuck said. “Raleigh Becket, this is my new physical therapist.”

Raleigh glanced at his watch. Chuck wasn’t sure what, exactly, they were doing - hazing? Letting this guy know that whatever he thought he knew, he didn’t know? Because he’d certainly not been around with them during the Resistance portion of things. Not that there was a huge need for physical therapists - well, none of them would have admitted to the need. “Yeah, I’ve got an appointment with you in two hours,” he said.

“With me, then,” Herc said, and grinned at Dr. Hill.

“Shoulders and collarbones are…” Dr. Hill began, and then smiled slightly. “Right. Let’s get started, uh, Chuck. Can I call you Chuck?”

“Already did, mate,” Chuck said.

“And it’s all right for them to-”

“Don’t seem to have much else to do,” Chuck said, and Herc shrugged his shoulders.

“Just running the place,” he said.

It felt very strange to move after days without moving. Chuck could hear himself creak, and there was part of him that wanted to tell Herc and Raleigh to get the fuck out - but then, with them here, he grinned and bore it and did everything without protest.

When it was over, he fucking ached, and he felt nauseous. Raleigh handed him a painkiller and cup of water without Chuck asking - he was off everything but I.V. antibiotics at that point. “You’ll get there,” Raleigh said.

“Yeah,” Chuck said. He had decided, last night, that even though Raleigh had sort of been around since the beginning and had witnessed some not insignificant tantrums, things were different now. It would probably be best not to try to lead him to actively question what the hell he was doing with Chuck. So Chuck kept the question to himself - sure, he’d get _there,_ but who knew what there was like?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All food related prejudices are my own (sorry, England, but prawn cocktail chips definitely = no, though thank you for the Hob Nobs).


	3. Chapter 3

Chuck had been injured before. Chuck hated physical therapy each time but he did exactly what they told him - and things got better. He was a finely tuned machine, put together with the same finesse and care as they took with Striker. Repairs were necessary and effective.

Physical therapy was slow going. It had been easy to ignore how much his ribs hurt when he was laying down and not moving - not to mention the pain at his incision sites, the deep ache inside of his abdomen that often gave way to stabbing pain that took his breath away. “You’re doing really well, Chuck,” Dr. Hill said. “I think we’ll have you walking when you leave - you’ll need a cane, to stabilize, so that part of your recovery should be good, but…” He stopped when he saw Chuck’s expression, and then looked away.

This was why Chuck didn’t like doctors.

“You’re not telling me something,” he said to Herc. He was wearing those goddamned jeans again, like he wasn’t Marshall of the Shatterdome. Where did you even get jeans like that? He’d never seen his father in them. “I’m fucking competent - you don’t think I need to know…”

“You’re right,” Herc said. “But I’m not keeping anything from you, Dr. Lauritsen - look, I’ll get her, OK.”

Chuck crossed his arms. At least he could do that - though he could feel the stretch and burn in his skin. He flared his nostrils when he exhaled. “You’re not telling me something,” he repeated, to her.

She had her hair up in a messy bun and looked tired. She swiveled in the doctor's stool and pressed her lips together. “I read over all your past files, include the psych notes - all of the psych notes,” she said. “I spoke with your father and it seems you recover best when…” Chuck met her eyes, and he felt bad. Still.

“I’m not a child-”

“You allowed your father to participate and make decisions in your medical care,” Lauritsen said. “Every pilot does - it’s...and it was my…” It was strange to see her struggling with her words, since she was usually so straightforward and seemed to always have the perfect thing ready to say immediately. Chuck kind of wanted to be like her. “I like you quite a bit, Chuck, beyond you being my patient, so. I wanted to delay this conversation.”

“OK,” Chuck said, and he glanced at Herc. His father was staring down at his folded hands.

“The moist desquamation seems to have ceased and the grafts are closing quite nicely,” Lauritsen said. “The reason the grafts needed to be done-”

“So I wasn’t full of gaping holes,” Chuck said. “Which let in bacteria. I get it.”

“Your skin is always going to be quite fragile, though, and you’re going to need to be vigilant...the blood samples I’ve been taking-” Chuck felt like time stopped, then, and he’d heard this conversation before - no, Herc had heard this conversation before, directly from Lauritsen. She’d perfected the  _you tried to save the world from horrible monsters from another dimension but now you’re going to die of cancer_ talk. Dr. Death, Chuck thought. “Chuck?”

Chuck glanced over at Herc, who shook his head slightly. Chuck wasn’t sure if it was a fragment of a ghost drift or if they had just latched onto the same shared memory.

“Your immune system is always going to be compromised from the amount of radiation you were exposed to, and the situation is only more complicated - more compromised - because I had to remove your spleen and your liver does not function at 100%.”

“Oh,” Chuck said, and he was almost relieved. Herc was actually relieved, almost like he was going to cry.

“So any scratch needs to be treated aggressively - I’ll give you supplies for that. But you’ll also need to be vigilant about your general exposure to viruses and bacteria.”

“What, like, the Boy in the Bubble?” Chuck asked.

“It is not that severe, but you will be incredibly susceptible to illness.”

“What about a bone marrow transplant?” Herc asked.

“It is a risky procedure,” Dr. Lauritsen replied. “Right now, there is much we do not know, how much things will improve...I would like to wait before we think of that.”

“I’m a match, though,” Herc said. He’d been tested for Tamsin, Rick, Stacker, and finally they’d just compiled a database of all of the Jaeger pilots. Here is your giant robot, here is the card of the people who might have to donate bone marrow in order to save your life because we’re going to irradiate you.

“This is good to know,” Lauritsen said.

“That’s it?” Chuck asked. Lauritsen nodded, and Chuck clenched his jaw together. He could understand the decision - in the hospital wing, this wasn’t something he needed to know.

“I do want to do a series of X-Rays on your ribs, see how they are progressing,” she said.

“You can probably just hold the film up to me,” Chuck said. Herc winced.

“Do you have any other questions?” Lauritsen asked.

Plenty, Chuck thought - what could he expect, what kind of life was he going to have? How fucking damaged was he? On a scale of Kaiceph to Bonesquid, how did he rank, in terms of appearance?

“You will also want to have any...partner...get tested,” she said. Herc glanced at Lauritsen, then at Chuck. Lauritsen raised an eyebrow, stood, and excused herself.

“Uh,” Chuck said.

“Told you,” Herc replied.

“What?” Chuck asked.

“When you were moping, how no one was going to want you...I knew. So there’s that.”

“Right,” Chuck said. “That’ll work, when I tell him they need to swab his prick.” Hey, Raleigh, mind getting tested for STDs so your cock doesn’t kill me?

Herc looked at him and looked sad, and Chuck couldn’t figure out why. They’d never had to deal with this before - no girlfriends. Boyfriends. There was no reason to go that far with people. They either liked him too much, but because of whatever the magazines said about him, or they just wanted to fuck a Jaeger pilot. He had gravitated towards the later, but even then…

“Got him tested when he first came in,” Herc said, voice soft. Made sense - didn’t want him bringing in anything particularly dick rotting from the Wall, and Christ, Chuck didn’t even know… “Chuck.”

Chuck uncrossed his arms and really wanted something besides the small plush Max to throw. He wanted to pull the real Max tight to his chest and hold him again. “I don’t want to deal with this shit!” he said.

“No, why would you?” Herc asked. He blamed himself, Chuck could see it, like that conversation they had in the hangar - why didn’t I make you a better person? “One thing at a time, though, Chuck, let’s focus on getting you out of here, yeah?”

“Sure,” Chuck said.

* * *

“Yeah, I figured,” Raleigh said, when Chuck told him. Chuck narrowed his eyes at him and just shook his head. There was no point in interrogating it - Raleigh was stubborn. “And I’m good, so, no concern. I mean, I’m not good, in a lot of respects, but…” He shrugged his shoulders. Right, Chuck thought, and he remembered Raleigh’s admissions earlier. “Look, let me help you out of bed, we can do PT together.”

“OK,” Chuck said, though the last thing he liked was getting helped out of bed. He hated how sore he was, he hated how he couldn’t move like he wanted to. He hated how he looked when he saw himself in a mirror, not just how disgusting his skin was but the way that everything hung off of his body, how gaunt his face was. Nothing was right.

Aside from being alive - and he realized, as he slowly lifted and stretched his arms under Dr. Hill’s directions, that he had never been more fucking scared than when he had gone to flip the switch to release the payload. Chuck supposed this was going to have to be what he remembered to get himself through things, this time. In his previous physical therapy sessions he had always used his need to get better and get back in Striker.

Then Hill had him switch to moving his legs up and down, tugging at the tight skin on his inner thigh. Raleigh got a shoulder massage.

This was, Chuck thought, probably a fairly accurate metaphor. The massage looked pleasant enough from the outside, but he could tell from the slight grimace on Raleigh’s face and the way his brow was furrowed that Dr. Hill was working him hard.

And damnit, Chuck wanted to touch Raleigh. Not like that - though he supposed he would massage Raleigh, if Raleigh asked, and told him what felt right. He’d wanted to touch Raleigh for some time, but seeing him topless, like that, even if he was in discomfort. Probably showed how long it had been since Chuck had got laid, and he glanced down at his cock and groaned when he realized that he was half hard.

“I have to piss,” he said, trying to keep his words as casual as possible.

He pushed himself off the table, winced at how tight he felt, and then made for the bathroom as quickly as possible.

Fuck, he thought, and - he hadn’t had a proper hard-on since Pitfall. He went into a stall, because there would probably be little else more embarrassing than getting caught having to wank while watching Raleigh get a massage. Topless Raleigh, but still.

He licked at his palm and sighed, then touched his cock. Still half-hard, but he had faith in himself. He wondered why he hadn’t tried sooner - fucking hurt too much, he supposed, to think about coming, and how bad was that?

He thumbed at the tip and sighed, then gripped around himself and stroked. He thought of Raleigh’s hands on him, running over him, Raleigh guiding him carefully, gently, letting Chuck slip inside of him. He imagined raleigh would feel as warm as a mouth, and he had a pretty good idea of what Raleigh would look like-

He forgot how easy it was, how quick, when you hadn’t brought yourself off in some time. Like when he was fourteen and got taken on that stupid camping trip with Herc and Stacker and Mako, some father-son bonding time that meant that he had no ability to get himself off because there was nowhere to go where he didn’t feel Stacker’s eyes on him. There was no way he was ever going to let Stacker even think that he was jerking off thinking about his newly adopted daughter, even if Chuck was definitely thinking more about Stacker than…

Chuck came hard in his own hand and shuddered. He inhaled, and exhaled. The orgasm has been swift and quick and so there wasn’t a huge amount of pleasure in it - not like when he held himself close for so long and drew it out. It didn’t matter.

Yeah, dick still works, he thought. He wiped his hand with some toilet paper and sighed. It hadn’t even occurred to him to test things out, until now - so, OK, yeah, he was getting better, he supposed.

He understood why Dr. Hill suggested the cane as he tried to get himself back to the adjacent room. His body was stiff and didn’t seem to want to move in the same direction - and then he couldn’t seem to stabilize himself with his core, the way that his ribs hurt. He grasped at the wall, and Dr. Hill came over and handed him the cane he had neglected before without comment.

Raleigh opened an eye and he looked amused. “Long piss,” he said, and Chuck narrowed his eyes at him as Dr. Hill helped him get back up onto the exercise table.

* * *

They discharged him three days later. Chuck had spent almost a month in the hospital wing.

“I’ve got a conference call,” Herc said, popping in that morning, when Chuck felt his throat tighten because...he didn’t know because, really. He was supposed to be happy about leaving.

“That’s OK,” Chuck said. “I’m just walking from here to my room.”

Herc blinked at him and Chuck sighed. Right. Sometimes Chuck forgot what Herc had gone through while Chuck was drifting from the Breach to the top of the Pacific Ocean. While he had been burning - and thank fuck he didn’t remember much of that at all.

“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” Herc said. “You’ve got a party.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said. Part of him wanted to wonder how much it was about him and how much it was just celebrating another thing about closing the Breach - like he was the last dangling thread, and now that he would be OK, people could finally relax. We only lost six Rangers! Not seven!

Chuck sighed. Everything was different out there, that was why he was feeling the beginnings of a panic attack. Which was stupid - isn’t that what he had wanted, when he’d got close into Raleigh’s face? I quite like my life?

A nurse came, half an hour later, when Raleigh, Mako, and Tendo were assembled outside. Like Chuck needed a color guard.

“OK,” said the nurse, as she helped Chuck out of bed and handed him the cane he’d practiced with in physical therapy, “How do you feel?”

“Like I got stepped on by a fucking Kaiju,” Chuck replied. He was white knuckling the cane as he took a few steps forward.

Chuck grinned when he saw Max outside - he had almost forgotten, and of course that was why Tendo was there. He bent down and then hissed as Max launched himself at him. For a moment, maybe the only moment of his life, Max appeared weightless. Then the eventual fall came, and Chuck felt bad he couldn’t comfort him. Raleigh scooped him up, instead, and he kissed Chuck’s face. Every cell in his body seemed to be shaking. It was pure, unadulterated joy.

This was why people had dogs, Chuck thought. “Hey, baby boy,” he said. “God, I missed you.” Chuck could almost hear Max - _I’ve been waiting for you dad I knew you were here because I smelled you and I love you dad and you are so awesome dad…_

They made a slow, probably strange looking parade back to Chuck’s room. Mako frowned as Tendo kept reaching into the bag with all of Chuck’s get-well treats and eating Tim Tams. “I forgot how much I liked these,” he said, and Mako shook her head at him.

Chuck wasn’t sure why he hugged Herc - he figured it was his best opportunity, and, hell, the sort of thing that should have witnesses just so that he couldn’t claim he had hallucinated Herc’s response, later. He was pretty sure it was because he remembered Pentecost’s expression before he stuffed him in the escape pod, how he made sure to point out he was saving Chuck for Herc. Chuck knew he was getting some benefit of the doubt, though, too, he had felt an ache in Stacker when they had started to Drift and Stacker had felt how scared Chuck was to die.

The hug almost hurt his ribs, but Herc pulled back at the last moment and gave Chuck a sheepish look. They’d never been touchy, even before. His mum hadn’t even really liked touching.

Raleigh, though, Raleigh liked touching - his hands were gentle as he helped Chuck out of his scrubs. Chuck was surprised that Herc had basically handed him over to Raleigh. Had they had some sort of shady alleyway deal where they fought and then exchanged ownership of him? Chuck saw relief, in his father’s face, but realized it was more well intentioned than here, you want him? He’s your problem now.

Chuck sat down on his bed and shivered in just his boxers - he’d always prefered boxer briefs, but his thighs were still healing. Raleigh glanced over at him and smiled, slightly. Chuck had to remind himself it was nothing Raleigh hadn’t already seen before. He still felt himself blush. Raleigh gave him a soft smile and pulled a t-shirt out.

Chuck made the mistake of looking at himself in the mirror near his bed. He hadn’t seen himself, like this, and he stood slowly to get a better perspective. There was the side of his neck with the skin graft, now definitely resembling woven cloth. He turned his head where the bald spots were behind his ear. The rest of his skin was like a patchwork, but grotesque, raised in some areas and cratered in others. He didn’t even recognized his frame - he seemed hunched over, elderly, sagging, almost.

Then he turned and saw the short sleeve shirt Raleigh was holding up. It dawned on Raleigh at about the same time, so Chuck didn’t start shouting at him, he just started shouting. “I can’t wear that - I, isn’t there anything else? Because I’m not - look at me!” Everyone was going to see him and think, he’s a hero, and look at him, so young, so ruined - they would pity him, and admire him, and he was just going to be this image of...

Raleigh set the shirt aside and stuck his head out the door, got one of Herc’s henleys. Chuck sighed as Raleigh helped him pull it on. “Used to be, when I wore Herc’s clothes, they were tight.”

Raleigh put both of his hands on the side of Chuck’s face and looked at him in a way Chuck was pretty sure no one had looked at him before. A little bit of it was Raleigh, there was always something piercing about his gaze - like there was more to him and simultaneously less to him than other people, because he had some unique sense of clarity. “You piloted a Jaeger at fifteen, Chuck,” Raleigh said. “Anything you can work at, that you want - you’ll get it back.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, but - Raleigh was right. Chuck leaned in and kissed him for it. He felt Raleigh smile into the kiss, and Chuck smiled too. Raleigh’s lips were surprisingly soft and it was better than the few other kisses they had shared when Chuck was certain Lauritsen wouldn’t burst in on them again. “Thank you,” he said, and he realized that Raleigh had never bullshitted Chuck, never said all of the popular things like it’s going to be OK, because he knew that it wasn’t.

“Chuck,” Raleigh said, and kissed him again. Then he said, “You’re going to need some pants.”

* * *

The party was draining. He decided he probably should have let more people visit him - he wouldn’t have so much that he needed to make up, so many people he had to assure that he was doing all right.

Herc didn’t leave his side. Even if he wasn’t participating in the conversation with Chuck he was speaking to someone nearby - as though someone would pick Chuck up in the chair that he was seated in and just carry him off. On one rare moment when he stepped away to talk to the chief engineer on Gipsy Danger, Mako carefully slid a folding chair next to the armchair that they had identified as Chuck’s by attaching a very poorly drawn bulldog to the bag of it.

“Everything is so different,” he said, and gestured around the room. A bar. They had a fucking bar in a Jaeger Bay, Mako was dating Tendo, and everyone else had formed new friendships and alliances. Chuck had drank a little too much, he thought, combined with the painkillers he was being to feel...sad.

“Yes,” she said. “Research, we will all be doing that now, and-”

“No, I meant,” he said - Mako had never been the best with people. He waved his hand around. Newt was laughing with some Russians, Striker’s Crew was playing some kind of games with cups and ping pong balls with Crimson Typhoon’s.

“Everything is different,” Mako said. “The world is different. People come together over things, fall apart…” she pressed her lips together and he followed her gaze over to Tendo. It made Chuck remember some of the times they had spent together when they were younger. Usually twice, three times a year, when Pentecost and Herc would have to go to some Shatterdome for meetings with all of the big, important people. The brass who wouldn’t know how to end the Kaiju attacks if they shit the answer out in the morning in big glowing lights. Mako had been quiet, but Max had always made things easier. He was a good judge of character.

“He was a really...” Chuck said, and he should have said something to Mako sooner, maybe when she had come to visit with him. He had drifted with Pentecost, for fuck’s sake, and even though he was a blank slate there were still things that had washed over Chuck, that he couldn’t avoid. “He loved you so much.”

“Thank you,” Mako said. “Every day, I try to make it worth it.”

She shifted, and moved to elbow him and then stopped - probably remembering that his ribs were all still in various stages of recovery. “You are with…” She studied him, closely, and then broke into a large smile. ”Even just those three words, they make you red?”

“He kissed me,” Chuck said.

“He helped you, this afternoon, too,” Mako said. “Took care of you.”

He’s been taking care of me for a long time, Chuck realized - and he had no clue what Raleigh’s real initial motivation had been, but it didn’t matter.

“He did,” Chuck said. “He’s been really great, actually, and I’ve kind of been a shit.”

Mako smiled. Chuck shook his head. “So I’ve always been a shit,” he said.

“You were - are - in a lot of pain, Chuck, no will hold this against you. Much.” It seemed to be cautionary, and Chuck nodded.

“Yes,” he said.

“Chuck, you need another drink?” Tendo asked. “Hero of the hour.”

“I’m not a-” Chuck said, but Mako shook her head. Tendo was a bit drunk, and she wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him into it to demonstrate this to Chuck. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Just, your party, you know…”

“Chuck is on painkillers,” Mako said.

“Oh, right - good ones, right? Man, I could use a Vicodin-”

“Tendo,” Mako said, but her tone suggested she was aware of Tendo’s proclivities. Hell, most people had developed something, at this point - booze, pills, sex, religion. If you didn’t have something, well. Those were the people who left when the PPDC became a resistance movement. “Hello, Newt, how is-”

Newt had his face in his cellphone - either Hermann was live texting the birth of his first child, or Newt was just bombarding him with texts and Hermann had thrown his phone into the toilet. Talya trailed behind him.

“I, uh, never really thanked you for the little Max,” Chuck said to her.

She smiled at him, and he knew he was drunk - because he thought, well done, Geiszler, she is a babe. “There are many things, now, celebrating...to...uh, чтить память?” Geiszler glanced up at her and typed something.

“Commemorate,” he said.

“You know Russian?” Chuck asked, and Geiszler shrugged, like it wasn’t a big thing that he’d probably learned it in three weeks.

“Yes, this,” Talya said. “But I thought, the little Max is the right thing.”

“You could have got Tim Tams,” Mako said.

“I will have you know,” Geiszler said, “that those were not the easiest things to get, I had to go to Sasha and Aleksis’...” he glanced down then, and at Talya. She sighed.

“You got those before..?” Chuck asked, and then he shook his head. He did not want to think about it. Newt would be the only person who was optimistic.

“How long were you with them?” Mako asked. The Russians had been really hands on with Cherno, had close relationships with all their techs. Chuck had known Striker’s - but they’d all been older and a lot friendlier with Herc, some had even followed him from the RAAF.

“The start,” said Talya. “The end was how they would have wanted it. If there was to be an end.”

Newt wrapped an arm around her waist and turned his head towards her. She had that smile on their face that people got when they were trying to hide the fact they were tearing up. But she had Newt, so that was good. He seemed to know what he was doing. Which was more than Chuck could say.

“How did you get into engineering?” Chuck asked. He hoped it was all right. Mako smiled at him, slightly.

“I was picked to go on scholarship, away to school,” Talya said. “And then more and...I liked making things work. Then we hear about the Jaeger, and I had to be there.” Chuck nodded. He knew that feeling.

Mako walked over and came back with beers from a cooler. She handled a bottle of water to Chuck and he smiled at her. “Talya is the one who made the drive-joint propulsion system in Nova Hyperion and then the modified-”

“The joint modification in Striker?” Chuck asked. She nodded as Newt kept typing. They talked about Striker’s system, for a few minutes, and then Talya saw someone and nodded at them. She wrapped an arm around Newt and led him away.

“Thanks,” Chuck said to Mako. “I don’t know how to people.”

She gave him a curious look for a moment and then nodded. “I do not either - none of us do, really. You just have to pretend.”

* * *

He remembered this advice when he fucked Raleigh - well, Raleigh fucked him, since Chuck just sort of hung out while Raleigh took care of everything. He wanted it to be good, even though he had no idea what he was doing, and he wanted to give something to Raleigh. So he figured, lay back, pretend.

Raleigh seemed satisfied, at least. Chuck certainly was - hell, this was what he had hoped sex would be like. Not just in the physical sense, like the feeling of how tight Raleigh felt around his cock, how amazing his orgasm was, but also in the connection it created between them.

“You’re thinking something,” Raleigh said, when they came back from seeing the baby.

“It’s strange, but it just made me...Herc’s lonely,” Chuck said. He had seen it in his father’s eyes the night before, at the party, and the way that Herc had watched Chuck go off with Raleigh. Chuck felt bad because his concern was both selfish and altruistic - his dad deserved someone, he was a good guy. And he needed someone, because Chuck really didn’t want him up his ass the rest of his life.

“Yeah,” Raleigh said, and he looked thoughtful. “He’s been wearing jeans, though.”

“Yeah, right?” Chuck asked, and he grinned as he sat down in the chair in his room - so it wasn’t just him, and, better, Raleigh shared the same idea. He still seemed, to Chuck, like someone he would really get along with but that he would share few determinations like that, about, just small level observational things.

“Maybe there’s someone,” Raleigh said. Chuck shook his head. “Someone he...likes.” Chuck tried to think about this, then shook his head again. Raleigh sat down on the bed, the sheets still rumpled from sex. Chuck scrunched his nose. “What, you gonna change the sheets every time you fuck someone?”

Chuck bristled at the someone - maybe he had misunderstood exactly what Raleigh was offering here. “Depends, I guess, on how much of a mess someone makes.”

Raleigh gave him a soft smile and a shrug. “Chuck...I just. Don’t want to presume.” At least Raleigh was better at expressing things. At recognizing emotions. “Come here.”

Chuck walked over slowly and focused on stabilizing his core, like Dr. Hill had emphasized. He still felt himself lean on the cane. Raleigh put a hand on his back as he sat down. Anyone else and he would have bristled at the idea he needed the people. “I’m gonna have to get some of my own shirts,” Chuck said. “Get a requisition form.”

He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly felt exhausted. He had figured he would get out of the hospital and start doing things, but...

“Don’t think they’re doing that anymore,” Raleigh said. “We can order some, though.” Raleigh turned his head and seemed amused. “You know, from the Internet or something?”

“Yeah,” Chuck said - he was aware other people did that, but everything he had ever needed was supplied by PPDC. He’d picked a few things up in markets and stores when he had down time, but...all the necessities came from ticking a few boxes and then waiting for the appropriate items to be delivered. “Sure.”

“Tired?” Raleigh asked, and when Chuck nodded, he said, “can’t imagine why.”

“I think you had something to do with it,” Chuck muttered.

“Let me put a movie on, or something,” Raleigh said, and he nodded at Chuck’s laptop.

“Because we haven’t ever done that,” Chuck said. Raleigh just exhaled and then typed on the keyboard until he was into the Shatterdome servers - one of the nice things of having a lot of techs and engineers around that were computer savvy was that just about anything you could ever want to watch was available. Chuck scooted back and reached behind him to fluff some of the pillows up for them. Whoever his bed fairy was had given them some extras. Chuck wanted to do something nice for them, if he ever definitively figured out who it was.

“There,” Raleigh said, and he laid down in the pillows that Chuck had fluffed. Chuck moved back slowly. Raleigh wrapped an arm around him. He was surprisingly comfortable for someone with so many muscles. “Relaxed?”

“Yeah, mate,” Chuck said. “I’ve been relaxed for three fucking weeks now.”

Raleigh didn’t respond, instead, he just squeezed Chuck’s shoulder and then guided him down a little more so his head was against Raleigh’s chest. Chuck sighed, but acquiesced. There was no point in fighting this, not now.


	4. Chapter 4

  
“Bar,” Raleigh said, after they had dinner.

“I knew everyone was boozing it up,” Chuck said. He put on another one of Herc’s henleys and then a pair of his own pants. He had worn sweats yesterday, today he thought he would upgrade to clothes. Be a real person.

They fell off his waist and down his hips. He inhaled. It wasn’t like he had been some musclehead, in the gym all the time. But as a pilot...he had worked hard, for Striker, and-

“Belt, maybe?” Raleigh asked.

“I’ll just wear the sweats, it’s fine,” Chuck said. Raleigh nodded.

As they walked - slowly, Chuck leaning more on his cane because they had focused on his core muscles today, Raleigh bringing Max along - he said, “We should figure out the jeans.”

“You want jeans?” Raleigh asked.

“No, Herc’s jeans.”

“Like the fucking Hardy boys?” Raleigh asked.

“The what?”

“I’m not _that_ old,” Raleigh replied. Chuck just looked at him. “Or maybe it wasn’t a thing in Australia.” Chuck shook his head.

Chuck took in the bar set-up better than he had yesterday at his party. It was less full, so he was also able to appreciate the make-shift three sided bar that had been put together with what seemed to be spare Jaeger parts and wood panels, the couches and chairs that had been brought down from offices and people’s apartments, the fact that there was not only a shelf of real booze behind the bar but also snacks on the end tables.

Chuck flashed forward - the Shatterdome would be a museum and they would have pieces of Crimson Typhoon on display. The bar would be preserved and people would take pictures of it. “I’d like a beer,” he said.

“Sure,” Raleigh, and he guided him to an empty couch. Chuck grinned at one of Striker’s techs, who walked over to him.

“Good to see you up and about,” Chris said. “OK if I..?” he waved at the couch.

“Yeah, yeah,” Chuck said, and smiled. Chris was the youngest on the crew, maybe thirty. “You keeping put, then?”

“Actually, no,” he said. “Headed back to Melbourne next week - got an actual pension from PPDC, so, you know, relax for a bit. Family.” He took a sip of his drink.

“Probably won’t be too hard to get a job,” Chuck said. “Just put on your resume, you know,  _Jaeger Tech, PPDC, saved the world, you dumb fucks._ ” Chris laughed at this and moved to get over when Raleigh came back with the beers. Raleigh waved at him and took the office chair across from Chuck. He introduced them, and soon one of Gipsy’s techs wandered over as well. Raleigh couldn’t help but move around in his wheeled chair.

Newt plopped down next to Chuck. “Where’s your lady friend?” Chuck asked, and the two techs excused themselves, mentioned another drink. Newt shrugged.

“Shopping with Mako,” he replied. “And Tendo. Shipment of...stuff came in, I guess. Clothes and whatever.”

“That is what the Internet is for,” Chuck said.

“Or girlfriends,” Newt replied, and then glanced at Raleigh. He cocked his head in response, gave Newt the same irritated look that had accompanied an earlier _i_ _t’s Raleigh._ That had just been a month ago. Little more than a month. Chuck glanced over at Raleigh and rubbed at one of his bald spots. The skin was smooth and soft, like a child’s. He felt a puddle of anxiety form in his stomach - probably in the space where his spleen or kidney had been.

Herc walked in - jeans on, and Chuck narrowed his eyes. Raleigh glanced over at Herc and then grinned at Chuck. He leaned in towards Chuck. “You want to trail him?”

“He’ll know what we’re up to,” Chuck said.

“What is this? Chuck Hansen and the Case of the Well Fitting Dad Jeans?” Newt asked.

“That’s sort of what I said,” Raleigh replied. “Except that instead of Nancy Drew-”

“You would be the Hardy Boys,” Newt said, “besides, can’t a guy wear well-fitted jeans?”

“A guy,” said Chuck, “is not my dad-”

“Don’t know, those henley’s were-” Chuck glared at Newt and shook his head, and he stopped, if only for a moment. “I’m just saying, you know, no one particularly needs to see him in those kinds of jeans, because we’ve already got a good enough view of-”

“But does he know that?” Raleigh asked.

Chuck nodded at this, then turned and followed Newt’s gaze to the returning victorious shoppers, bags in hand. “Was the promised delivery of mass produced European goods as wonderful as it was made out to be?” Newt asked. Their entrance caught Herc’s attention, preventing Chuck from trying to figure out who Herc was hoping to find at the bar that evening. He walked over.

Worse, though, the reminder that there had been a lack of non-essential clothing coming into Hong Kong meant that Herc had either got the jeans specially delivered over the past month - and Chuck doubted Herc would have known how to do this - or he had _had them all along._  For...reasons.

“Stop spoiling everyone’s fun, you communist,” Tendo replied.

“They do,” Talya said. Her voice was incredibly serious, and everyone was quiet for a moment before she smiled. “I got you some new shirts.”

“I don’t need-”

“You have been wearing the same two for the past three weeks,” Herc said. Talya nodded.

Mako handed a large bag to Chuck from the Gap. Raleigh stood and sat on the other side of Chuck. “Ma-ako, didn’t you get anything for me?”

They had all become friends, Chuck realized. They had spent the past four weeks in this space, together, talking, figuring each other out, and-

“Yes,” Mako said, pulling him back. “It is in there. You are-” she stopped, and pressed her lips together, then continued, “-different sizes.”

Chuck glanced up at her and winced at the feeling of stretch in his neck. He smiled slightly at Mako, and she nodded. Then he looked at Herc, who just pressed his lips together. Raleigh began to pull at the bag like he was a kid at Christmas. “Hey, you’re gonna get it all messed up,” Chuck said. “All nice and folded.”

“They do that at the store,” Raleigh said. He handed Chuck a stack of long sleeve t-shirts. The fabric was much softer than anything the PPDC had ever given him - not that they were supposed to be providing him with the highest quality cotton. “Aw, new sweaters!”

“With buttons,” said Mako. “They are called cardigans.”

“I’m aware,” said Raleigh, and he smiled at her. “Thank you, Mako. I was going to order some stuff, but-”

“Yes, I know,” said Mako. Chuck resisted the urge to sigh and to be the stupid jealous girlfriend. They had drifted together, he reminded himself. And Raleigh had a life outside of him, this past month.

But. Chuck really hadn’t had a life outside of Raleigh and Herc.

“There is more for you, Chuck,” Mako said. “Some pants, some sweaters.”

“I really appreciate it, Mako,” Chuck said. Tendo opened his mouth, but Mako elbowed him. He closed it.

“What did you get on your shopping trip, Tendo?” Herc asked.

“Oh, I wasn’t-”

“He pretend he does not want to shop,” said Talya. “That someone had to drive us.”

“New pajamas, shirts, nothing big,” Tendo said. “I need a drink, after that, it’s for damn sure.”

“Good thing we bring Ranger with us,” Talya said. Mako smiled. Chuck could just imagine her fighting between crowds of fashion-starved Hong Kong denizens to make sure she got the thickest knit cardigan that she could find. Raleigh had already put it on and was buttoning it.

“You look like my grandfather,” Herc said. When had Herc started making fun of Raleigh, Chuck wondered?

“I like it,” Raleigh said. “Besides, not all of them have buttons.”

“Now you have five whole sweaters,” Mako said. Chuck grinned.

“I am going to get drinks - who needs drinks?” Tendo said, then shook his head and just walked off. It occurred to Chuck that, if anyone knew what Herc was up to with those jeans of him, it would be Tendo. He always had his finger on the pulse of who was fucking who in the Shatterdome.

Chuck moved to get up and go with him, but Newt beat him to it, shaking his head. “I can-” Chuck began.

“Yes, you can, but it will take a long ass time,” Raleigh said. Herc narrowed his eyes at Raleigh - and it was good to see the two of them hadn’t become best friends, or started conspiring against him. Chuck grinned, though. He wanted people to tell the truth. He wasn’t fragile. Well, he was - emotionally and physically, he supposed. Just not about certain things - like broken ribs. He could handle his broken ribs. “Oh, hey, Signe.”

“Heard you were back,” Signe said, and Mako passed her a much smaller, green bag of items. “Thank you, Mako. I can not stand that shit.”

“Talya picked them out,” Mako said. Chuck noted that Mako also had one of the green bags, and Talya, and - God, everyone was fucking, he thought. Raleigh reached and put his hand on Chuck’s thigh, and Chuck smiled at him. One of the better things about being a guy, he supposed, you didn’t need to get special underwear to take off to have sex in.

“I appreciate it,” Signe said, and then went and joined some of the others from medical at another end of the bar. Chuck appreciated it. He would like to have a drink with her, at some point, but he figured this showed that his doctor, his dad, and his...boyfriend weren’t tight.

Chuck accepted another beer from Tendo and sipped it for the rest of the night. He watched, mostly - how they all built off each other and off things they had discussed over the past month. There were times when he was able to speak, though. At first he was surprised that they listened, but then he reminded himself. Not a pity party - or in that way, at least. They’d been waiting for Chuck.

He watched his dad, wondered what Herc was doing, hanging out with all these kids. Herc - he’d been friends with Stacker, some of the older pilots. It wasn’t weird for him to have friends, Chuck supposed, and Tendo, Newt, and probably Talya were closer to his father’s age. They were who was left.

It was good to see Herc laugh.

“You ready?” Raleigh asked, and Chuck realized that the crowd had diminished, though there were still several boisterous Crimson Typhoon techs drinking at the bar.

“Yeah,” Chuck said. “Max. Bathroom?” Max picked his head up, intrigued. Mostly because he knew he was going to get to bed, lazy bastard.

“I’ll take him,” Herc said. “Unless you want him, Choi?”

Tendo looked at Herc, at Chuck, and then at Max. “I am...I miss him very much, but I am sure he would prefer-” Max mad a huffing sound, and Raleigh grinned.

Chuck pulled himself to his feet and winced. He had sat still for too long, something Hill had warned him against - he shook his head when Tendo reached for him, though, and just took his cane and leaned on it. “Little stiff,” he said. “Thanks again, Mako.”

She nodded at him.

* * *

“Chuck?”

Chuck ignored Raleigh as he considered the shower. He couldn’t get his arms high enough to wash his hair, he realized, before he even stepped inside. There was no way he was going to be able to twist and turn in the stall, either, and- “Chuck?”

Raleigh opened the door and poked his head in. He was still wearing the cardigan, though he had taken off his pants. Chuck smiled, slightly, he looked adorable in his boxer briefs and Chunky cardigan. “You said you were going to - oh.”

“I’m sure Lauritsen can get some nurse to make a house call, it’s not - what?” Raleigh was grinning at him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. Chuck considered this - he didn’t want Raleigh cleaning him, thinking he had to bathe him. He remembered when Herc had, when Chuck had broke his arm after their third kill, and it had been one of the most uncomfortable experiences he’d ever had.

Raleigh pressed against him and wrapped his arms around Chuck’s waist, gentle, not disturbing his ribs. Raleigh had quickly figured out how much pressure he could apply.

“You don’t have to-” Chuck was about to say wipe my ass and was relieved that Raleigh’s hand on his cock made him stop from finishing the sentence. That would have been a boner killer for both of them. “Oh. OK.”

Raleigh kissed his neck. Chuck turned on the shower and watched as Raleigh stripped.

He wondered if he had once looked like that - he had to have, all smooth skin and muscle. He shook his head and got in the shower. Can’t change things, he told himself. It was easy to push the thought out of his head, anyway, at the feeling of the hot water on him for the first time in a month. He had forgot how fucking good a shower felt instead of a sponge bath.

Raleigh climbed in after him. “We have to be quick,” Chuck said. “Then you have to grease me up.” He nodded to the industrial sized tub of burn victim lotion he had got before he checked out.

“Promise?” Raleigh asked. Chuck sighed as Raleigh took the antibacterial soap, also supplied by PPDC medical, and worked it into suds in his hands. He moved over Chuck quickly, his touch delicate, and Chuck sank into it.

Was this the trade off, he wondered? Like one of those press the button questions - you get to fuck the hot guy you masturbated to as a teenager, but you are disfigured and disabled? “Chuck,” Raleigh said, and his voice was deep and even more throaty in Chuck’s ear as he gently washed Chuck’s torso. “Trust me.”

“I do,” Chuck said, and he meant it.

“You’re more than…” Raleigh said, and let suds cascade down his back and then guided Chuck into the shower head. Chuck presumed he trailed off because he made the connection - the one Herc couldn’t quite get, but...well, Herc had never got that, really. It had a different application, now - that it wasn’t about how he looked. It was about what his body could do. “Let me wash your hair.” His fingers parted Chuck’s hair and began to massage in some shampoo.

“Fuuck, Raleigh,” Chuck said. He leaned down, slightly, so Raleigh could get his fingers to work over more of his scalp. “That feels so good.”

“Good,” Raleigh said. He massaged as he rinsed the shampoo from Chuck’s hair, then poured more of the antibacterial soap into his hand.

“I think I’m - fuuuck!” Raleigh moved his hand through the cleave of Chuck’s ass and circled, pressed gently. “Raleigh?”

“Just being thorough,” Raleigh murmured. His thumb drifted, pressed something between Chuck’s ass and balls. Chuck moaned, deep, full, and yeah, he’d touched there but he hadn’t realized that that feeling was what he was supposed to be after. “There.”

Chuck stepped out, careful, while Raleigh quickly worked himself over with the soap. No doubt part of whatever discharge instructions Lauritsen had given him. How to fuck your immuno suppressed boyfriend.

Chuck shook his head and watched, instead, and Raleigh grinned and met his eyes. He turned to show Chuck his ass, turned again and stroked his own cock a few times for Chuck. “You look amazing,” Chuck said. He clutched the bar on the wall that someone had installed at some point and began to spread the lotion on himself.

“Thought I was greasing you up,” Raleigh said.

“Plenty for both of us,” Chuck replied, and Raleigh smiled. He fingers were just as gentle as they had been in the shower, and his hair dripped water on Chuck as he focused on getting the lotion into his back, his shoulders, his inner thighs and down his legs. He kissed the spot right above the crease of Chuck’s ass when he stood from massaging the lotion into his ankles. “Raleigh, I want-” Raleigh stood and kissed his neck.

“I want to take it slow, Chuck,” Raleigh said.

Chuck furrowed his brow. “Don’t know where you were, uh, this morning, Becket, but-”

“Exactly,” Raleigh said. “I know...well. Not that I didn’t want to, but, I want to. Explore. We have time.”

Chuck would have protested, except he liked how this sounded. Probably because Raleigh had just washed and massaged him, both softened him and made him half-hard. Or relaxed, sleepy, and horny. It was a good feeling - Raleigh seemed to know what he was doing. “OK,” he said. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Raleigh said. He watched as Chuck got into their bed, then got in beside him. It took them a moment or two to find an angle that worked, and then Raleigh kissed him - slow, steady, building from a slight pressure to something more determined and then both of their tongues were twining together and working with each other. Chuck moaned into it as Raleigh slowed, but kept the pressure. Raleigh stroked his hair.

Chuck opened his eyes and met Raleigh’s, and Raleigh grinned at him and trailed a hand down to Chuck’s cock. Raleigh still had enough lotion on his hands he really didn’t need any lube, but he reached for it anyway in the bedside table. “Raleigh-”

“Tell me what feels good,” Raleigh said.

“That is a stupid request,” Chuck replied. Raleigh stopped. “Fair enough,” Chuck said. “That does not feel good.” Raleigh resumed stroking him from base to tip. “That feels good.”

“Was that so ha-difficult?” Raleigh asked. Chuck shook his head, laughed, and held out a hand.

“Why don’t I show you?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah,” Raleigh said, and squeezed lube into Chuck’s hand. “OK.” Chuck, at least, knew how to masturbate. He presumed this was part of Raleigh’s plan. He wasn’t going to begrudge him. Chuck slid Raleigh’s foreskin back and traced the tip, and Raleigh groaned and mimicked his motions.

Things escalated quickly - it was the shower, Chuck presumed. All the touching, and as Raleigh followed what he did on the upstroke and pulled his hand over the tip, the beginnings of an orgasm pooled in Chuck’s stomach and he began to feel warm. “Raleigh, yeah, I’m...I’m going to-”

“A little faster, Chuck,” Raleigh murmured, and Chuck complied, though he kept the pressure light. Raleigh groaned.

Chuck came first, pumping into Raleigh’s hand - he stopped, for a moment, and might have apologized for it. Then he closed his eyes and focused. He opened his eyes when he heard Raleigh moan and hitch his breath, and he held Raleigh’s eyes as he came. Chuck sighed. “Should have done that before the shower,” he said.

“Where is the fun in that?” Raleigh asked. He reached and brought some wipes from the bedside drawer.

“Where did those come from?” Chuck asked, and then he quickly shook his head. Raleigh smiled at him, though, confirming it. Chuck blushed.

“Though you know,” Raleigh said, and Chuck shook his head again - he didn’t want to know, he sincerely hoped Raleigh hadn’t got Mako or Tendo or even Talya to purchase them a vibrator or something. “No, not like - girls only buy new underwear when they’re going to have sex. Which means that-”

“What?” Chuck said. “I thought - how-” he stopped, realizing how. Raleigh gave him a soft, sad, smile. “But. What do they do other times?”

“Wear comfortable underwear,” Raleigh said. “I don’t know, Chuck, I just know that-” Chuck resisted the urge to ask what kind of a pervert Yancy Becket was, that he was aware of this amount of detail about women and their underwear. Maybe someday.

“That’s good,” Chuck said. “So now we have two cases to investigate. It made the whole follow-Herc-around-to-attempt-to-figure-out-who-he-facies thing a bit silly.

“Well, why did you want to-”

“To…” Chuck stopped and considered this. “To tell them not to fuck with my dad. They want a celebratory I didn’t drown in kaiju shit fuck, fine, but not with my dad.”

“Only serious inquiries allowed,” Raleigh said, and he was being sincere when he said that. Chuck smiled, slightly, and nodded. “That’s sweet, Chuck.”

“Well, someone needs to look out for him,” Chuck said. He did his best to sound put out by it, but there was no point, really. Raleigh appeared to be onto him.

* * *

Herc came and watched him in physical therapy towards the end, then nodded at Chuck. “Let’s get something to eat.” A grin sort of played across his face as Raleigh trailed behind Chuck, not sure if he was included. “C’mon, Becket, stop holding us up.” He narrowed his eyes at Raleigh, slightly, and Chuck had to remind himself that he and Herc hadn’t drifted since...well, they hadn’t drifted in some time.

And - and shit, Chuck thought, they’d managed to talk more than they had in years. His near-death probably had something to do with it, too, but it wasn’t just a correlation, Chuck was sure.

He caught Herc watching Raleigh grab Max’s leash, which brought him back to his original thought - Herc was looking out for him. Herc was also attempting to determine if Raleigh had fucked him, Chuck was sure. Made his son a man. Herc couldn’t help but be obvious about it, because, as far as Herc’s ability to read people went, Chuck was pretty sure he could either determine if they were conscious or unconscious. It seemed to be an inherited Hansen trait.

Once they’d sat, Herc grunted. Bad news, then. Chuck sighed. He’d had his fair share already, he was tired of it. “Brass said I’ve got to give in to the press requests,” Herc said.

Chuck rolled his eyes. Everyone thought he liked speaking to reporters. Really, he’d just learned early on that they would get out of his face if he gave them the soundbite they needed and played everyone’s favorite cocky little bastard. “Haven’t you done any?”

“Plenty, post-Pitfall,” Herc said, and he glanced at Raleigh, who shook his head and closed his eyes. “But it was all news conferences, screened questions-”

“Time for the fluff pieces,” Raleigh said.

“Fuck,” Chuck said. His heroic recovery, Raleigh’s heroic recovery, Mako’s heroic recovery, Herc’s heroic recovery...and lots about all of their emotions and feelings. “How much we fucking overcame to save everyone’s assess.”

“Something like that,” Herc said. He sighed. “Don’t have much control, boys. Brass is pretty insistent. Need to keep our funding.” Raleigh nodded. “Gonna insist on screened questions, again. Working with PR on this.”

“We have PR?” Chuck asked. The public relations people the PPDC had provided before had fled as soon as the funding cut their salaries.

“Yeah, haven’t you, uh, met Ms. Kircher?” Herc asked.

Raleigh shook his head, and looked at Chuck. He nodded back. Definitely. Ms. Kircher was almost definitely the cause of the well-fitted jeans.

“Would probably be good to talk to her, though, before we have to do all the press,” Raleigh said. “Especially Chuck.”

“Oi!” Chuck said, doing his best to sound offended. Raleigh was good, he thought, because Herc had narrowed his eyes slightly as he considered him.

“Chuck,” his father said, “you should eat.” Chuck was wearing one of his new t-shirts - soft and comfortable against his skin - and a pair of PPDC sweatpants that he had cinched as far as they could go. He sighed. He knew Herc meant well, but he couldn’t help but think, thanks for reminding me I look like shit. Especially in this context - he could just see the descriptions of him that would going to be written in the various magazines and websites after he spoke with them.

Raleigh put a hand on his thigh and squeezed, gently. Chuck relaxed into the touch and slid a little closer to him. Their thighs touched. He began to poke at his lunch - still bland foods, but a little more substantial. Boiled potatoes, plain chicken, carrots, steamed fish. Chuck met Herc’s gaze - there was something odd and searching in it, as he looked at Chuck and Raleigh. Chuck had to look away.

* * *

Raleigh, Chuck, and Mako sat in the small conference room waiting for the arrival of Ms. Kircher. “She has been here for two weeks,” said Mako. “She has been issuing all of our press releases. And she has focused her attentions on our K-Science Department.”

Raleigh nodded. “Where I would be focusing, too, you see that one interview with Newt on Youtube back when he was in Tokyo?” Chuck grinned - Newt had started shouting at the interview and had thrown a pillow at her. After he had unbuttoned his shirt to show her his kaiju tattoos.

“We’re going to try and prevent anymore of that, eh?” said Ms. Kircher, and Chuck looked up and instantly began assessing her.

He wasn’t good with ages, but she seemed to be in about the right range - late thirties or early forties, though she looked like she had taken care of herself. Average height, fairly fit but still curvy. She had brown, curly hair that went down to her shoulders, which was good, Chuck sort of hated the idea of his father with one of those women who cut all their hair off at forty. She was wearing a dress, matching jacket, heels, pantyhose, like any other good corporate drone. Not a single thing like his mum, which was a relief. Neither of them needed a fucking replacement.

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” she said. _Canadian,_  Raleigh wrote on the legal pad he had brought to take notes. “I’m Melanie Kircher.” She smiled. She was nervous. Chuck supposed it was warranted - if he were in PR, he’d be afraid of having to wrangle the three of them as well. Especially since she wanted to fuck his dad.

“I’m Chuck,” he said, and gave her a grin. He was not averse to terrorizing the woman and making sure she passed the Chuck Hansen test. After all, he wasn’t going anywhere. “That’s Max.”

“Hello, Max,” she said. Max was already thumping his tail as she leaned down to pet him. She knew where to pet him, that spot right behind his ears that he liked. Chuck narrowed his eyes and was displeased that Max hadn’t told him he’d met Herc’s new lady friend.

Probably because he can’t talk, asshole, he thought. Or not that way, at least.

“That is Raleigh,” said Mako, when Raleigh just stared at her. “I am Mako.”

“Right, great,” said Ms. Kircher, and she sat down across from them. “Look, I know you’re not keen on any of this-”

“Where in Canada are you from?” Raleigh asked, turning his head slightly. She was instantly enamored with them. Raleigh had that effect on women of a certain age, Chuck had noticed. Two of his nurses had taken a real shine to him.

“Nova Scotia,” she replied. “Uh, but I’m going to talk you through-”

“All the talking points brass wants us to highlight?” Chuck asked. Mako rolled her eyes at both of them.

“How to handle all of those intrusive questions, answer them while being polite and not giving anything away you don’t want to,” she said. “I’m on your side, OK? Because I would interpret being on your side as preventing you from achieving meme status on some website, eh?”

Chuck exhaled. He sort of liked her. _Fuck,_ he wrote on the legal pad.

Didn’t mean he was going to dial it down. “Chuck already had whole websites,” Mako said. “Dedicated to dimples. Also the Chuck Hansen is a Dick But I Would Still Fuck him one.” Raleigh groaned.

“Yes, well, none of that came from interviews, though,” said Ms. Kircher. “Well, some of that did. Though that can be easily avoided-”

“What if Chuck is just a dick, though?” Raleigh asked. “Do we have enough time to - ow! That’s not disproving-” Chuck had kicked him under the table. Raleigh rubbed his ankle against his.

“I don’t think that-” Ms. Kircher looked at Chuck, then at Raleigh. “Are you two together?”

Chuck felt himself immediately go bright red. “Uh-” Raleigh said.

“What, you can’t even answer that immediately, you cunt?” Chuck asked. He sort of meant it.

“Oh, well, if you think so, then we are,” Raleigh said. There was palpable relief in his voice. Chuck furrowed his brow - was this something they were supposed to discuss.

“You are both idiots,” Mako said. “It is a good thing you seem to be a professional, Ms. Kircher.”

“Melanie, please,” she said. “So, we’ll have to separate the two of you for all interviews, since I’m presuming you don’t want to be on the cover of every magazine.” Chuck opened his mouth, then closed it. Were they that obvious? Did he want to be that obvious? He glanced over at Raleigh, who had a stupid smile on his face. Raleigh did, apparently. Chuck sighed. Fine with him, then, he supposed. “Most will want to interview you with your father, and you two together anyway, but…” she pulled out a tablet and typed on it quickly. “And I suppose we can segue into language usage, from there-”

Chuck dutifully sat through the rest of her talk with them - after all, Mako called it. She knew what she was doing and Chuck was willing to utilize her in her professional capacity if it saved him from having to explain how he felt about roasting in an escape pod while he drifted to the surface of the Pacific Ocean. He still made plenty of comments, though, just to keep her on her oes.

She just danced right around it, handled him. Was her job, though.

No use hiding the ball, Chuck figured, so he nudged Raleigh and Mako to get out while he remained seated. He played like he had a hard time getting up and watched as she organized her bag. “Oi, Melanie,” he said, emphasizing the wrong syllable in her name - she had said it all French-like, in that lilt of hers.

“Yes?” she said. “Do you have another question?”

“I know what you’re up to,” Chuck said. Her face remained blank. “And despite what everyone thinks, I - you fuck with my father, and I will cunt punt you.” He paused as she pursed her lips. “Or I’ll get Becket or Mori to cunt punt you, depending.”

“I see,” she said, and smiled at him slightly. “Well. Have a nice afternoon, Ranger.”

It’s on, Chuck thought. It is so on.


	5. Chapter 5

Chuck looked at his face in the mirror - his face was fine, he realized, and apparently whoever had engineered the radiation shields for the Jaegers had their priorities in order. Protect the head, protect the groin, let the rest of it melt. He turned his head. His hair was shaggy enough, now, that the bald spots weren’t immediately apparent if you weren’t looking for them. His neck alternated between webbed looking and ridged, but it was at least approaching flesh colored. Ms. Kircher - Melanie - was right, so long as he didn’t lean his head in that direction it wouldn’t be obvious.

Besides, he told himself, they’d had four days to practice and get ready. He’d given fake answers to the most ridiculous questions Tendo and Newt could come up with. It would be fine. And as far as his neck went, the jacket collar would help, too. Chuck ran his fingers through the lambswool of the collar and then furrowed his brow when he turned it over and saw the three additional kaiju heads.

“Put ‘em on for you,” Herc said, and Chuck turned and met his eyes as he stood in the doorway. He was wearing his jacket as well, over a clean Henley and a pair of PPDC issue slacks. Brass had apparently wanted all of them in their dress uniforms, but that had gone out the window when they realized Raleigh didn’t have one.

“Yeah, but I didn’t-”

“Chuck,” Herc said. He approached him tentatively, like Chuck was a bit of a scared animal. He supposed he was, in this context, because Herc was moving in for a hug. Chuck felt himself tense. Herc’s arms were tight around him, as well, this was not something that was natural for either of them. Chuck relaxed, though, hugged Herc back. After all, he’d done the same thing to Herc when he had got out of the hospital. Payback was a bitch. “There,” Herc said. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Chuck replied. He picked up the jacket and put it on, then turned to look at himself.

He frowned. He looked like how he remembered himself right after Scissure, when he had taken to wearing Herc’s clothes. He was almost drowning in his own jacket, just like some stupid little boy who just wanted-

Herc put a hand on his shoulder and steadied him. “You look fine,” he said, and then pulled the collar up so that it hid Chuck’s neck a bit better. “There,” he said. Chuck nodded. He was at least wearing a sweater that fit underneath, a very soft knit in green that Mako had picked out. Raleigh had been really pleased with it, said it made his eyes look amazing.

Melanie was waiting for them right before the room where their interviews would be conducted. “Can you walk without the cane?” she asked.

Chuck pursed his lips. He wasn’t sure - he remembered what she said, about minimizing or obscuring things so that there wouldn’t be questions about them. What was worse, the cane, or having to lean on Herc if he needed to? Whoever it was would probably lap the little father/son moment up, and...Chuck would rather talk about that, he supposed, though it was a really diabolical choice to have to make.

He handed the cane to her and she smiled at them. “You’ll both do just fine,” she said. She nodded at Herc. Chuck narrowed his eyes. Melanie grinned at him - she was just as engaged as Chuck was, it seemed, and that was fine. Chuck would rather have a worthy adversary.

Herc tightened Max’s leash. “Ready, boy?” he asked. Best distraction technique, they figured. No one could resist Max.

Chuck stood straight and did his best to stabilize his abdomen. It was only a few feet to the thick, comfortable chair someone had set out. He winced with each step since they seemed to put pressure on his healing ribs and the spaces in his abdomen. He closed his eyes when he sat down and settled, inhaled sharply when he got a sharp jolt from one of the more badly broken ribs.

The first reporter was brought in and smiled at them. She was from an Australian magazine. Melanie had said she was going to start them off nice and easy, and the reporter was congratulatory and heaped praise on them. She asked them easy questions like what they planned to next - _stay in the PPDC, for now, help them transition over to the next stage of defense we’ll be providing...research, yes,_ and Herc went on about what he was doing as Marshal. She thanked both of them effusively for what they had done and presented them with little stuffed koalas and insisted on a picture of them with the animals.

“Koalas are such little shits,” Chuck said, when she walked off. Herc rolled his eyes. “They are! We could of got a stuffed salty, or something…” He smiled, then, as the next reporter came in. He went to move the stuffed animal to the table, but Max caught the movement and immediately jumped up. “You want him, buddy?” Chuck asked.

“Chuck-” Herc said.

“Oi, he’s been well behaved, this will give him something to do,” Chuck said, and gave the reporter a big smile. The sort of smile that had, apparently, inspired an entire website devoted to his dimples. Chuck couldn’t even react to learning about that - this was what other people, ordinary people, his age were doing while the world ended?

It went well until they got to an American, which figured. They and the Brits tended to be the worst, always, used to all the tabloids and magazines and websites that went on and on about the lives of celebrities and, later, Jaeger pilots. Chuck remembered the fitness magazines that tried to get him to talk about his sex life, or the general interest magazines that wanted him to give them something about his mum so they could write some poignant story about the brave young Ranger who had given up his childhood for the world. The only one’s he really tolerated were the ones who wrote for lady magazines, women’s websites - favorite color, favorite movie, what kind of underwear do you wear in a drive suit?

It suddenly occurred to him why he might have inspired so many stupid websites. He sighed.

“I’d like for you to run us through your thoughts, Marshal, during the final minutes of Operation Pitfall?”

Herc glanced back at Melanie, who was waiting in the wings, and cocked his head. She shook her head back - Chuck wasn’t sure what this meant, presumably the question had been worded slightly differently to pass muster.

“I, like everyone else, was just focused on the mission - once they hit the Breach, Becket and Mori went silent and so...we were just waiting. Most tense moments of my life. Then relief, of course, that we succeeded-”

The reporter smiled and glanced at Chuck. “What about you?” Chuck looked at Herc - he didn’t have to answer it, he knew, but what kind of an ass would it make him look like? Plus this guy seemed to be a real idiot, and Chuck wanted to hold onto the ability to be withholding for something really objectionable.

“Wasn’t really thinking about that much, mate,” he said. “Didn’t know what was going on.” He held the reporters gaze.

“You weren’t…” the reporter began, and Chuck couldn’t tell you what he said, because it just brought him back to those moments that had felt like hours while he was being seared and roasted and all he could feel was a crushing pain and the fact that he couldn’t breathe and how he was going to die in the damn escape pod instead of in Striker like he should, and-

“You got official records, you can go over those,” Herc replied. Chuck came back to his father’s voice and instinctively reached down to pet Max. He felt sweaty. He bet he looked sweaty - and why was this guy getting off on asking them this stuff?

Chuck squeezed his eyes once his hand made it to Max’s head. - it felt like he was being stabbed, and he realized too late that bending down like this at the waist was probably a movement that was still beyond him. Max whined and pawed at him, and Chuck pulled himself straight up and exhaled. “What we’re looking for, though, is what’s beyond that perspective, to learn about...the sacrifice that went into - are you still recovering, Chuck?”

“What do you think?” Chuck asked. Herc sighed. Melanie was making a cutting motion across her neck. Chuck wasn’t in the mood. “Look, you want perspective - after Sydney, we knew all knew that Wall was bullshit, right, and I can’t imagine what other people were thinking, but...we needed a game ending move, yeah? And we were the ones had to make it, because we could. That’s a burden and a privilege.” So is still being here, he thought, but he pressed his lips together.

The reporter stared at him. “Do you feel like you have a second chance?”

“At what?” Chuck asked, “Boozing it up and getting girls to flash their tits at me? Been there and done that - you would not believe the number of tits I have seen.” Herc issued a long sigh and the reporter seemed pleased. Of course he did. Chuck knew exactly what to feed them. “Or do you want me to talk about my second lease on life and how grateful I am and all the fucking good I’m going to do?”

“Well, I would think that you would-”

“Because I already did it, mate. Saved the fucking world from giant alien monsters, I’m done, I think I put my bit in, you know? I think I’ll be a selfish bastard now, sit around and drink and play video games and get a nice beer gut, probably masturbate a ton, if that’s OK with everyone.” Chuck gave him a big smile. “Hang out with my dog and my old man.”

“Any special someone?”

“Did I not just say masturbate a ton?” Chuck asked, and before he could go on any further he heard the clack of heels and Melanie was suddenly very close to the reporter with an uncharacteristic but sort of badass smile on her face.

“I’ll have to end this interview, as you’ve deviated from our stipulation to only ask approved questions-”

“Ranger Hansen was happy to answer-”

“Ranger Hansen didn’t get a list beforehand, so he wasn’t aware what was approved and what wasn’t,” Melanie said, and turned and glared at Chuck. It was a pretty good glare. Chuck looked at Herc and gave him a thumbs up. Herc put his hand over his eyes and shook his head, then inhaled.

Once the reporter was escorted out, he said, “Chuck, did you take an extra painkiller this morning?”

I might have, Chuck thought, and so he pressed his lips together as a response. Herc sighed, again, the particularly aggrieved one he should look into trademarking. Then he looked up when he realized that Melanie had disappeared and reappeared with another reporter.

“This is Jane Cathcart with Vanity Fair,” Melanie said. She glared at Chuck again and mouthed “behave” to him before walking out. Chuck grimaced. For some reason, he imagined her doing that to Herc in bed.

“I’d like to ask you about your plans, now,” said Jane Cathcart, and Herc seemed to palpably relax.

* * *

They had food delivered that night and Chuck wished that he could eat all of it, instead of just the plain dim sum packets with steamed vegetables and chicken and some soup that was handily labeled “Chuck.” He almost managed to get a tiny, spiced ball into his mouth but Raleigh had smacked his wrist gently and took it from him. “That thing will eat a hole through your stomach,” he said.

“Could replace my spleen,” Chuck replied.  
“No,” Raleigh said.

“So,” Tendo said, and he leaned back and grinned at Herc. “No one has talked, yet, about how much fun they had today.” He had money riding on this, Chuck could tell.

“They kept trying to get us to admit we were together,” Raleigh said, and glanced across the table at Mako. She nodded her head. “But in creative ways-”

“The one woman asked if I liked blonde men.”

“And you told them you preferred ones who looked like Elvis?” Chuck asked.

Tendo shook his head. “How many times have you used that line, Hansen?”

“Never gets old,” Chuck said. He spooned some of his soup - more like broth - into his mouth and shrugged his shoulders.

“Asked how intimate it was to drift with one another…” Raleigh said.

“Whether Raleigh was as I expected,” Mako said.

“What did you say?” Herc asked.

“He had been much dirtier,” Mako replied. Tendo closed his eyes and smiled.

“Well, that’s good, then,” Herc said. “You two did about as well as we did.”

“One rant,” Chuck said. “I had one rant.”

“Oh?” Raleigh asked, and his hand was on Chuck’s thigh.

“About all the tits he’d seen,” Herc said. “And how, now that he’d properly saved the world, he was gonna drink beer, get fat, play video games and masturbate a lot.” Raleigh and Mako gave Chuck equally wide eyed looks. It would sort of be cute if it wasn’t annoying.

“Go team,” Tendo said, and kissed Mako on the cheek. “You don’t need to worry about that dirty quote, Mako, trust me.”

“He was quite dirty,” Mako said. She looked around at all of them. Herc laughed at this and shook his head. “This is a sex thing, isn’t it?”

“Like dirty talk,” Raleigh said. Mako considered this and then nodded.

“I suppose I am the wrong person to ask about that, then,” she said.

Underhanded, Mori, Chuck thought, but obliged her with a smile even as he felt himself reaching for his bald spot - he wasn’t sure why he felt some kind of tangled anxiety about that comment, but it was there nonetheless. Raleigh squeezed his thigh and Chuck removed his hand.

“This is good, though” Herc said. “Just imagine how it would have gone if we hadn’t had Ms. Kircher.”

“Aren’t we supposed to call her Melanie?” Chuck asked, and met Herc’s eyes.

“Well, she’s a professional, Chuck, I…” Herc shook his head and looked a little confused. Raleigh glanced over at Chuck and nodded his head. “The important thing is that we’re done, for now,” Herc said. “Hopefully for some time, and can just...relax and drink and get fat.”

“I said I was gonna get a beer gut, not get fat,” Chuck replied. As though this was a distinction that actually mattered. Raleigh’s hand moved up over the very flat plane of Chuck’s stomach and circled it. Chuck narrowed his eyes at him - figured Raleigh would be into weird stuff like that. “I actually have no intention of getting a beer gut, anyway, it was just-”

“Video games, though,” Tendo said. “Video games could be good…”

“I am very good at Mario Kart,” Mako said. Raleigh smiled at her - that standard Mako Mori is amazing at everything of course smile that he got when Mako talked about even the most trivial things she had done that day. Chuck did his best not to react to it, but it was difficult. He and Herc had never had that kind of connection. Not to mention Chuck had never really had a strong drift with anyone but his dad. When he was due to graduate there was a lot of talk about how they weren’t going to be able to find anyone to drift with him and maybe he needed some additional training and psychological counseling-

Then Uncle Scott had fucked up, and there was Striker and there was dad. Chuck still remembered when he went to Australia - no one had told him he was getting the assignment, they obviously wanted to reserve it for Herc for some touching father/son moment. Herc had walked him along the scaffolding to a place where they could get a good view of Striker and of the techs that were finishing installing the chest rockets.

“She’s got tit rockets,” Chuck said.

“No, just - chest is the most logical place, to put them, in terms of...look, you’ve read up on her. The advanced hydraulic joints they put in her…” Chuck nodded, not sure what Herc was getting at - look at my new Jaeger, son, ain’t she something? Chuck looked underneath the chest rockets where a standard pin-up girl was mounted on a bomb. Sort of like Gipsy’s, really, and he frowned.

“You think you would?” Herc asked, and Chuck realized he had zoned out. Herc looked disappointed, for some reason.

“Sorry, what?” Chuck asked.

“You think you would want to jockey in her?” Herc asked. It took Chuck a moment to put it all together - he hadn’t even tested with Herc yet, but they’d fought plenty of times in the kwoon and there were tons of recruits who liked to get on him about what it meant that his dad was the only person he was really compatible with.

“Yeah,” Chuck said. “But can we change the logo?” The girl on the bomb was top-heavy. “Only gonna emphasize...don’t want everyone going on about the boob rockets, eh?” He’d picked the infliction up from all of the Canadians who worked in Anchorage. For some reason it made Herc press his lips together.

“You got any ideas?” he asked.

Similar to back then, Raleigh pulled him out of his memory. “You ever play Mario Kart, Chuck?” he asked.

Chuck shook his head, though he might have. He honestly didn’t remember a lot, before Scissure, and that was just a whole other issue, wasn’t it? He’d add it to the list.

“Get a big television,” Herc said, and everyone appeared surprised he was endorsing this. “What? Might as well. We’ve got money in the recreation budget, now - where the hell you think we were getting all the booze from?”

* * *

Melanie was at the bar, dressed in a more casual outfit that made her look a little bit more human - and she had opted for nicely fitted jeans Of course she had.

Chuck shook his head, then reminded himself that this would be good for Herc. He got this weird, lonely look whenever Chuck and Raleigh took Max. Chuck had been pretty close to looking into getting him a puppy, before he met and vetted Melanie.

“Sorry,” he said to Melanie, when Raleigh very lightly elbowed his upper arm. “Bit of a cock up today.”

“Oh, I had planned for much worse,” Melanie said. “Really, in terms of damage control…”

“It’s kind of cute, isn’t it?” Raleigh asked. “Well, except for the part about all the tits. How come you haven’t told me about all the tits you’ve seen?”

Chuck blushed - which was not ideal, considering he was attempting to prove he was a civil human being while still imbuing Melanie Kircher with the sense that he should not fucked with. That he could actually get Raleigh Becket to cunt punt her, if necessary. He sighed.

“I appreciate the apology, though,” she said. “That’s very good of you.”

It was condescending - like Chuck was some kid she needed to train, get him to have good table manners. Chuck pursed his lips, but then Melanie turned and walked over towards some of the new researchers that he didn’t know. He sighed.

Then he saw Lauritsen, alone at the bar, looking like she was waiting for someone. “You mind?” he asked, and cocked his head in her direction.

“No,” said Raleigh. “Go on. Looks like Hermann has baby pictures, anyway…” There was something in his eyes as he spoke that made Chuck feel...anxiety. Fear. That made Chuck see a crib full of little blonde freckled babies wearing onesies with bulldogs on them. He shuddered, then moved for Lauritsen. That was an issue for later. Much, much later.

“Hey,” he said, and sat down next to her. Talya was tending bar with Newt. “Surprise me,” he said.

“Ooh,” said Talya. “You may regret this.”

“Do your worst,” Chuck said. “Look, I never got to, uh, properly thank you-”

“Chuck,” said Lauritsen, ”you don’t need to-”

“No, just,” Chuck said. “I know you were doing your job and I know what doing your job means, it’s just...you went above and beyond that, to help me out, you said that when we were talking about how shit my immune system was and I appreciate that, ‘cause I think it did really help me get better.” He was burning red, but he knew it was the right thing to do. Plus, he wanted to.

Lauritsen smiled at him and ducked her head, slightly. She put a hand on his arm and then leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Well, I’m glad,” she said. Something passed between them that Chuck wasn’t sure what, but he liked it.

“You’re gonna stay, right?”

“I think so,” she said. “I was thinking about going back home, but I was able to get my sister a job on one of the new research teams, so. She got here about two weeks ago, and it’s been...” Chuck turned his head, slightly, as a glass slid in front of him. Its contents were neon pink. It almost glowed. Talya grinned at him, and Chuck sipped it. Damnit, he thought, because it was pretty delicious - not overly sweet, despite the color, but enough that you couldn’t tell it was alcohol.

“What does she do?” Chuck asked, in an attempt to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary.

“I’ll have one of those,” Lauritsen replied. “Chemical engineer.”

“Oi, so you two weren’t overachievers or anything,” Chuck said.

“Coming from you,” Lauritsen replied. Chuck considered this. Herc had only sent him to the Jaeger Academy to get him out of his hair, not because - well. “Ah,” said Lauritsen - Signe, Chuck supposed, now. She’d kissed him, after all. He wondered if Raleigh had seen. “Chuck, this is Elin.”

Chuck turned and looked at Lauritsen’s sister and held his hand out to her. “Hi,” he said. “Chuck.” She was Lauritsen but a little softer in her face, fuller lips, longer hair - and she was definitely curvier.

“It is a pleasure,” Elin said. “I have heard much about you.” Her accent was a little thicker, as well. “This pink drink is good?” she asked.

“I think so,” Chuck said, and something felt a little bit off in the way that she was looking at him - like she expected something out of him, though he couldn’t imagine what. Did she want to see his scars, hear the stories about her sister ripping his skin off of him with medical implements?

Everything that happened next happened in slow motion, and Raleigh was probably on a couch with Mako and Tendo laughing his ass about it.

Herc moved in with Melanie, and Chuck narrowed his eyes - so here it is, he thought, the big reveal. Bring it on. But instead Melanie shifted and stood behind Signe. This was as Herc looked awkwardly at Chuck, then at Elin, then at Chuck’s glowing pink drink. “Ah,” said Herc, and he scratched the back of his neck. “So, I see you’ve met...Elin.”

“Yes,” said Elin. “Just briefly, I…”

“Well…” Herc said.

Chuck turned and gave his best Chuck Hansen glower of disapproval to Signe and Melanie, who he imagined had been sitting around in their newly acquired sexy underpants laughing about how he was threatening the wrong person. He shook his head, slowly. Signe cocked hers in a gesture that was oddly familiar, a I’m not even sorry expression that Chuck had to smile at, despite everything.

He turned back to Elin and Herc - his father had a hand on her hip, and she was looking sweet and expectant and Chuck was the one who was cornered, here. Bastards, all of them. He did the only sensible thing, which was to turn to Talya and say, “Probably two more of those pink things, yeah?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, and grinned at Chuck.

* * *

Raleigh was still laughing when they got back to their room. Chuck poked him in the stomach. “You - you were wrong to - and you knew Lauritsen had a sister here, and you didn’t think to mention that?”

“Eh,” said Raleigh. “I only met her briefly - and didn’t really connect it, just like, oh, here’s this Danish chemical engineer and then, like, two days later someone mentioned-”

“And you didn’t connect it?” Chuck asked. He fell back onto the bed and sighed. He might have pushed things a little too much, that evening, he had sat on the bar stool without support for longer than was probably recommended. His back and stomach ached and his ribs were throbbing. He reached for his pill bottle.

“It’s not like everyone in Denmark is related, Chuck,” Raleigh replied. He climbed in as Chuck swallowed a pill dry. Raleigh held his hand out - they’d be in trouble, if anyone came to check on their pills. One of Chuck’s was for the same strength they were giving Raleigh and they hadn’t really been paying attention to whose bottle they were coming out of. And, yes, this was the Raleigh Becket who had cautioned him about painkiller addiction.

“She looks like a smaller, curvier Lauritsen,” Chuck said.

“You were looking at her tits - you know, Chuck, I don’t try and make it a habit of questioning people’s identity but for someone who says he’s gay you really seem interested in breasts, all the tits you’ve seen-”

“Ah!” Chuck said, and wrapped a leg around Raleigh and pulled him closer. He kissed him, thrusting his tongue into Raleigh’s mouth, while Raleigh was still saying something stupid. He ran a hand down Raleigh’s warm, smooth skin and sighed when he cupped his dick - just beginning to harden in his jeans. “Seriously, though, you had no idea-”

“Nope,” Raleigh said, big puppy grin on his face as he straddled Chuck. “But no one cared about my reaction - and yours was sure as hell fun to watch.” Raleigh had mastered how to position himself and Chuck. His cock was resting against Chuck’s without any pressure on Chuck’s sore spots. Raleigh slid his hand down and slid his fingers under the band of Chuck’s sweat pants - the jeans Mako got had fit, but the fabric had been starchy and scratchy against his still healing skin.

Chuck was about to issue a clever retort, but Raleigh leaned in and cupped his jaw. Then he kissed him, his lips soft and then eager against Chuck’s. His mouth was still somehow slow, teasing, and finally he opened Chuck’s mouth and worked his tongue in. Chuck moaned. “Raleigh-”

“Mmm?” Raleigh asked. He kissed the scarred tissue at Chuck’s neck. The feeling was dull and Chuck sighed, wanting more. He had definitely wasted so much time - he could have been doing this, he could have felt... But then Raleigh sucked along his collarbone, and Chuck shivered.

“I just-”

“Oh, and you what else we didn’t talk about?” Raleigh asked, before he tongued at Chuck’s nipple, then sucked it, and the tight feeling went straight to Chuck’s cock. “You, getting kisses, from…”

“I had nothing to do - are you jealous?” Chuck leaned up and sucked at Raleigh’s neck. He ran his fingers through Raleigh’s thick hair - it was soft, it felt nice in his fingers, and it made him feel like Raleigh was really his. Which- “Would it make you feel better, if you fucked me?”

“I-” Raleigh opened his mouth, slightly - they had been going slow, exploring, whatever the fuck it was Raleigh said. And not that it hadn’t been good. Actually, it had been pretty great, because Raleigh had found places on Chuck’s body that Chuck would never have thought would feel that good being touched, kissed, sucked, and Chuck had made a map of Raleigh as well. It had been awkward, sometimes, like figuring out how Chuck was going to suck Raleigh off. Though the result had been very good, with Raleigh sitting on the bed and Chuck kneeling in front of him, Raleigh’s hand in his hair - but, but, the point was, this was the perfect opportunity and Chuck was curious.

No, fuck it. Chuck had already made an ass of himself plenty of times today. “I’ve just been thinking, a lot, about how much I need you to fuck me. Get your cock in me.”

“Fuuck,” Raleigh said, mouth opening wider before he closed it - biting slightly at his lower lip. Chuck moved up, groaned, and took Raleigh’s mouth into a kiss. He pulled back after sucking hard at his lower lip and grinned at him. “Yeah,” Raleigh said. “Yeah, can you - your legs, you can get those up?” They’d found out the hard way it was better to figure out what Chuck could and couldn’t do before both of them were hard.

Raleigh moved back and guided Chuck’s legs into position and held them. Chuck nodded, winced slightly as Raleigh moved them up and held them about shoulder height. “It was the moving, not the position,” Chuck said. Raleigh grinned and licked at his lips. He slid Chuck’s sweat pants off, let his hands linger on his legs.

Chuck felt his cock harden, even though he was a little nervous about this, but - Raleigh had felt so amazing, had seemed to really like it, so.

They went back to kissing, and Raleigh kissed him for some time before they both took their underwear off. Chuck moaned at the sensation of Raleigh’s smooth, hard cock against his own. He reached and lightly fisted both of them. Raleigh squirted some lube in his hand and rolled his hips into Chuck’s.

Then Raleigh slowly kissed his way down, focused on the part of Chuck’s belly near his navel that gave him this ticklish, turned on feeling and then trailed his hands along the side of Chuck’s hips. He got several pillows under Chuck, and Chuck felt a little odd - like he was about to get a medical exam - until Raleigh grabbed and squeezed at his ass before settling him down. “God, your ass,” he said.

“It’s not-”

“It is a good ass, Chuck Hansen,” Raleigh said, and Chuck laughed. Raleigh’s thumbs spread him, and Chuck groaned as a lubed finger slid right down him to his center. Raleigh had sort of fingered him, before, circled his rim and then pressed his prostate from the outside. Raleigh repeated this, but slid his one finger in a little further and then put his hand on Chuck’s dick as he did it.

“Huh,” Chuck said, because he wasn’t sure how else to describe the feeling, the way it made him feel tight and constricted and like he was - well, like he had a finger in his ass, and it was good, too, there was something to it he understood. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Raleigh asked, and slid further, past the muscle while a loose hand pumped his cock. Chuck closed his eyes for a moment to focus. It was a little overwhelming, how sensitive he was inside, how Raleigh stroked and gathered this feeling up inside him even as Chuck felt like he was full and not in the best way. Chuck groaned as Raleigh crooked his finger inside him, then slowly lsid it in and out. Then Raleigh crooked his finger again and there was a spark and Chuck felt hazy for a moment.

It didn’t take long for him to want it, after that. Raleigh obliged with another finger and began to fuck him with them. Chuck hitched his hips into Raleigh’s fingers because he wanted more of that tight, kinetic feeling that was making him feel needy and desperate. “God, Chuck, you look so good like this, all open for me, you’re such a good boy-”

Raleigh stopped, abruptly, and so did his hands. He licked his lips nervously. Chuck swallowed and reddened. He was pretty sure his cock twitched - and immediately, Raleigh’s face changed into a grin that wasn’t entirely...it was not a puppy Raleigh grin, it was something else, and Chuck’s cock twitched again. “You like that, Chuck? You like being my good boy?”

“Fuuck, Raleigh,” Chuck said, and Raleigh took the opportunity to get another finger into him.

“You need it, don’t you, want it really bad? You want my cock, don’t you?” Raleigh asked. Confirming, in case anyone was interested - Mako Mori - Raleigh Becket’s capacity for dirty talk. Chuck managed to issue a moan in response to this because he was humming with need, at that point, he felt like he was close to coming even though he knew he it was more anticipation, at this point.

“God, fuck, please, Raleigh, please,” he said. Raleigh removed his fingers and smiled at him.

“So lovely, Chuck,” he said, and quickly lubed his own cock. “You’re my good boy, aren’t you?” He moved in and pressed Chuck’s legs a little bit apart. Chuck winced, some of the skin was still tight there, but he shook his head when Raleigh met his eyes. “Ready?”

“Yes,” Chuck replied. “I - oh, oh, fuck, Raleigh, that’s-” Chuck knew, objectively, that Raleigh’s dick was bigger than his fingers but it felt like he was going to split to Chuck with it, and he was barely inside of him.

“Nice and slow, Chuck, and if you want to stop you tell me, yeah, just - you feel really good, you look fantastic, just…” Raleigh’s voice changed. He didn’t have to say the word, either, Chuck knew. He sighed. It was hard to relax with a dick sliding into your ass, though, one that was filling you and stretching you open around it - but the tone Raleigh was taking with him did help.

Then Raleigh slid further into him and Chuck wasn’t sure what clicked, exactly, but suddenly the throb and hum were back and he was… “Oh, God,” he moaned, and Raleigh readjusted his legs slightly and grinned down at Chuck. “OK, yeah,” he said. It’s hot and huge and it’s really good even if it does still hurt. Chuck rocked into Raleigh and he slid all the way into Chuck. “Raleigh.” He grabbed Chuck’s cock and began to work him slowly.

“Still gonna go slow, yeah?” Raleigh said, and he leaned forward a bit and ran a hand through Chuck’s hair as he pulled out. “There we go, that’s good, Chuck, that’s a good boy.”

Chuck flooded with warmth as Raleigh pressed into him again and - he wasn’t going to last, the way that this felt, and he moaned and moved his own hips to slow Raleigh down. “I thought you were eager, Chuck,” Raleigh said, and there was a fake pout on his face that made Chuck grin at him.

“I want it to-”

“Next time,” Raleigh murmured, and this time he did something with the way he rolled his hips and Chuck’s mouth went dry and everything in him stiffened and throbbed.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he said. “Raleigh, I-”

“There we go,” Raleigh murmured. The tone was slightly patronizing, and Chuck bit at his lower lip and arched his back to get more contact with that spot inside of him.

“Raleigh, fuck, more-”

“I know, you’re - uh, do that again, yeah, like that, Chuck, damnit, I know-” Raleigh continued babbling as he thrust in and out of Chuck, somehow both fast and soft. Then he shifted, rolled his hips again, added more pressure and hit Chuck square on his prostate. Chuck moaned.

Chuck grasped as the sheets and wanted, wished he could pull Raleigh closer and touch more of him. Soon, he thought - Raleigh at least had his hands on Chuck and was urging his hips into the same rhythm as Raleigh’s.

Chuck felt his balls draw up and he moaned and met Raleigh’s eyes. “I can’t, Raleigh - more, just, more-” Raleigh grinned slightly and thrust into Chuck and it didn’t take long before he was gone. Chuck moaned through the orgasm, long and perfect, and when he opened his eyes Raleigh was filling him with something warm and strange.

They lay together for some time, then Raleigh reached over to get the wipes. He slid off of, and out of Chuck, perhaps unintentionally, and then curled down next to Chuck by his better side. He nuzzled into Chuck’s neck. “Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah, Raleigh, I’d say so,” Chuck said. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Raleigh said. “I want-”

“I know,” Chuck replied.

“I…” Raleigh kissed his neck, then turned his head and kissed his lips. “I like to say things. And if you don’t mind me saying that, uh, the thing I said...” Chuck sort of marveled at how they were both dancing around this when not minutes earlier they’d just been open with it.

Ah, Chuck thought. “I think I was pretty good with you saying that to me, really,” he said. Raleigh grinned. Raleigh, it seemed, had ideas. Chuck grinned back at him.

“Good,” Raleigh said. “You know, I can’t wait to see that magazine article.”

“If Kircher doesn’t get to it first,” Chuck said. “Though she’s probably more concerned about the tits comment than about anything else.”

“Is that because she’s with Lauritsen?” Raleigh asked.

“No, it’s just more offensive,” Chuck replied. Raleigh nodded.

“You haven’t seen that many tits-”

“I have seen a lot of tits, Raleigh, how do you think I realized I was gay even with-” Chuck stopped, because Raleigh knew, and there wasn’t a need to spell it out - the pathetic lack of experience I had before I met you, was how Chuck would have finished that sentence. But that didn’t really emphasize why Raleigh should keep fucking him.

“You know,” Raleigh said, and his voice was sincere, suddenly, “even if you got a little belly, or a big belly, I would still like you.” He wrapped an arm around Chuck’s chest, above his ribs. “And fuck you.”

“Oh, well, good,” Chuck said. “Same goes for me, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Well, I believe in reciprocation,” Chuck thought. It was hard to imagine Raleigh Becket, clearly God of Abdominal Muscles and Crunches, with even a little tummy. Since he was Raleigh, though, Chuck figured it would look perfect on him.

“I know, Chuck,” Raleigh said. “it’s one of the things I like about you.” Then he grinned, and Chuck knew no good would come of it. “So, if Herc marries Lauritsen’s sister, she’ll sort of be your step aunt, right?”

“No,” Chuck said, even if Raleigh was more than likely right. “Besides, I don’t think they’ve even...I mean, Herc doesn’t even know how to date.”

“He seemed to be doing all right,” Raleigh said. He was likely referring to how Herc had sat in a corner of the bar with Elin all evening, lightly touching her knee and seeming to be able to have a whole entire conversation with her about god knew what. Tendo had texted Raleigh that he was pretty sure Herc had walked her back to his room. Chuck told Raleigh, at that point, that Tendo was being a creeper and then had to be reminded about his own plans to stalk his father to figure out who the object of his affections were.

Chuck sighed, even though he agreed and he was fundamentally fine with the whole thing - it was weird. “Movie?” Raleigh asked.

“Sure, why not,” Chuck said. He imagined someone asking, at some point, how they’d met - oh, Becket came and made me watch all of these television shows when I was completely captive and drugged up, Chuck might say. Eventually, he grew on me.

He smiled slightly and leaned in and kissed Raleigh before he got up to get things set up. “What?” Raleigh asked.

“Admiring your ass,” Chuck said. Totally true. Raleigh did have an amazing ass.

“Good,” Raleigh said. “As you should.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I really wish that there were more female characters in this damn canon so I didn't have to keep inventing OCs to pair everyone off with. I apologize.


End file.
